Hosea Lesson 15
As we continue our study of Hosea remember again to read Hosea as a
prophet; Hosea is part of the Nabiim and the books of the Nabiim, or the books
of the prophets in Scripture are books that are especially good vehicles for
the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin.
Daniel is primarily a wisdom book, as Psalms, Proverbs, Ruth, these are
all books designed to help you with the details of life. But by reading the prophets, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Hosea, and these other books, by these the Holy Spirit has a tool
inside the soul to bring conviction for sin.
Therefore these are the books that are the ones that we chew on,
meditate on, we read very, very slowly so that the Holy Spirit can apply the
details of these texts to our lives.
Remember that the Nabiim are primarily rib or lawsuits, they are written in a lawsuit format; they are a
count by count by count indictment of where the nation violated the Mosaic
Law. Unlike the point we made this
morning, that when God goes to evangelize the heathen, He does not convict of
individual sin; there He is only dealing with the sovereign of God and God’s
character; the issue is an entirely different.
When we come to the Nabiim we shift into the details because the Nabiim
were written inside the
And instead of fussing because we have a closed canon we ought to be
glad the canon is closed, because the fact that the canon is closed and the
fact that we don’t have prophets functioning means that we live in the age of
grace, when God is postponing judgment.
So it’s a sign of blessing that He isn’t speaking. He has already spoken in history to the
extent that He will. Jesus Christ is the
final revelation. All other revelation
in the future is going to be to carry out the judgments upon man because of
their response to His Son. There is no
need for added revelation; anyone who claims added revelation is claiming as a
corollary that Jesus Christ Himself is not a sufficient revelation. So the rib proceedings of Hosea continue, and
they’re phrased inside the categories of the Ten Commandments. For this reason as we study Hosea we are
trying to show the details of the Law that he took for granted. He presumed that his listeners would have
understood and so he just refers to this in general terms. We will not, coming out of Gentile
backgrounds we do not have, we simply do not have training in the Torah, in the
culture to understand these accusations.
So as we dealt with the problem of murder in Hosea 6, “thou shalt not
murder,” and many commented that they were surprised to see that “thou shalt
not murder” in the Bible had not only a negative but a positive effort, the
fact that people would not provide for the elderly would be considered a part
of “thou shalt not murder.” The
commandment was not just negative, you weren’t held innocent just because you
didn’t deprive someone directly of life, you would also be held accountable for
not doing all you could to further other people’s lives. So there is a negative and a positive behind
these commandments.
Tonight we’re going to see a negative and a positive behind the
commandment, “thou shalt not steal,” the eight commandment, the commandment
that undergirds all private property.
God says in Hosea 7:1-3, “When I would have healed
Now this is in the form of a principle; “When I would healed” them we
could translate as “whenever I go to heal
“When I would heal Israel,” it should all be in the present tense, “When
I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is discovered,” not “was
discovered,” it’s “is discovered,” it’s the niphal participle, it’s continually
exposed. Every time I go to cut this
off, hoping that the people that are in the northern kingdom, that as they sin
and as it spills out into overt activities, the results of their sin nature,
that when God cuts this off you would think, having been healed, that they
would then take advantage of the situation.
God erased the slate so they can start all over; and they start all over
all right, going back to exactly what they were doing, and so this is what it
means, every time I go to heal them the iniquity of Ephraim is rediscovered,
over and over and over and over again.
You cut the trees down, you cut the weeds down, and they grow right
back. This is God’s complaint against
the northern kingdom, whenever I go to heal them I get this back.
“…for,” the “for” introduces a three part accusation against the kingdom
which introduces us to the 8th commandment. Remember the prophets bring accusation
against the nation in terms of the Mosaic Torah, the treaty, and they will
bring indictment against the nation on the basis of the Ten Commandments, but
they mean all the details of each commandment. So there’s a three part
accusation; the first is a general and then there are two subdivisions of this
general accusation.
“For” as the King James says, “for they commit falsehood;” now it should
read “they practice fraud,” it’s the word for business practices that are
fraudulent, “they practice fraud,” then to show how they practice fraud, or the
means that are used he divides it up into two secondary instruments. One, “and the thief cometh in,” and two, “and the troop of robbers spoils
without.” The obvious contrast in that
verse is the individual thief on the inside of the house, burglary, and the
“troop of robbers” outside of the house, on the highway. So one is an individual thief, the other is a
marauding band.
But there’s something deeper than just the individual thief burglarizing
a home, or the marauding band beating someone up for their property on the
road. The “troop of robbers” would
include corporate businesses, would include groups of men who gather together
in the business world, who then use their power and their capital to defraud
people. Since we have introduced these
two with this phrase, “they practice fraud,” as so often happens the obvious is
not the true interpretation. Hosea will,
of course mean, and include within his indictment, the individual punk burglar;
that is included, and the marauding bands that roam the highways, they too are
included. But the first one, “practice
fraud” tips us off that Hosea intends far more than just the little punk
burglar; he intends to refer to the sophisticated business swindler; he intends
us to refer to the giant corporations as they seize and as they will steal, and
later he will include the state also. He
will include all three means of theft, the individual stealing property, the
corporation stealing property and the government stealing property. All three are means of breaking the commandment,
“thou shalt not steal.”
Now since we’ve introduced the commandment and since last time we went
through “thou shalt not murder,” we’re going to go through some of the verses,
back to the Law, what does it mean, “thou shalt not steal.” You think you know it until you see the details
of the Law and then suddenly when we’re faced with the tremendous details of
the Torah, we realize no, I didn’t understand “thou shalt not steal.” I thought “thou shalt not steal” was just me
personally taking property. Oh no, not at all, “thou shalt not steal” has a
far, far wider and much deeper reach than just the individual. So we go back and study a few doctrinal
points on the commandment, “thou shalt not steal.” What we’re doing is amplify the summary details
of the Law. This is how the Holy Spirit
brings conviction. You can’t be
convicted by the Holy Spirit by generalities.
The only way the Holy Spirit will ever bring conviction in your life is
at specific points.
For example, if someone says oh, I’m a miserable person, I’m a horrible
person, my first reaction is that didn’t come from the Holy Spirit, that came
from their own brooding over their own guilt because I know enough about how
the Holy Spirit works that that’s not the way He works. The Holy Spirit doesn’t walk in and say
you’re a slob; the Holy Spirit walks in and point by point points out
specifics, so when you have this massive guilt complex and this tremendous
depression, things have gotten far beyond the conviction of sin, by the time
you’ve gotten to that point of massive depression and all the rest of this kind
of thing, when you’ve got to that point, then you’ve got to the point where you
have dwelt upon the conviction of the Holy Spirit, but that isn’t the
conviction, the conviction was over previous detailed points that you failed to
make changes in and failed to respond to, and then having failed to respond to
the details, you naturally have this whole pile of guilt that circulates. And finally it spills out, oh I’m a miserable
person, oh, I’m horrible and all the rest of it, this kind of thing, this great
guilt thing. But the guilt that I’m
talking about that is bona fide is
always centered on a verse, always centered on a detail, that’s where the Holy
Spirit is.
Now that shouldn’t strike us as unusual because if the Holy Spirit’s
objective in bringing conviction of sin is true, how could He reach His
objective by just convicting you of generalities. A woman comes in and says my husband doesn’t
love me; that doesn’t tell me anything.
Tell me a hundred ways in which he doesn’t show his love to you. Now we’re talking specifics. It’s the same thing with the Holy Spirit, you
can’t change generalities. My husband is
inconsiderate; what’s that mean? How do
you change it, you can’t change inconsiderate.
You have to go to details, in what way is he inconsiderate?
So the Holy Spirit is showing Israel what ways, and it’s through the Law
and it goes all the way back to Genesis 1:26-28 and the mandates to subdue the
earth. God, in Genesis 1:26-28 sets forth the basis which will later be
protected for this 8th commandment, “thou shalt not steal.” It goes back t the first divine institution,
that man has responsibility and you can’t be responsible if you don’t have
something to be responsible for. A
person who owns no property basically has no freedom, at least in the political
sense of the word. So back in Genesis
1:26 we have the origin of the concept of private property, that’s where it all
began. Christianity… and don’t ever compromise
this point when you’re in discussion, it’s very easy to do it, Christianity
presupposes the validity of private property.
This is an axiom of the Christian faith. Said another way, we have just
simply told you that socialism is anti-Christian, it is anti-Biblical and can
in no way be reconciled to Scripture.
The Christian social sentimentalist that promotes socialism in the name
of Jesus Christ simply have not read their Bibles carefully. God hold us responsible for the property that
we own and we can’t be held responsible for property that we don’t own.
Example: we all own the post office, try going down and getting your
brick, you can’t, because we all own it, there’s no private property. So therefore it is private property that is
the basis for political freedom and the basis for responsibility and that is
what is given, we are to subdue the earth, to bring it under our control, and
it means own it; own it for God, conquer it for God. In the millennial kingdom there will be
private property; prophecies in Hosea and Isaiah claim this. Specifically the most anti-socialist prophecy
that you could ever read, when Isaiah says in the millennium it will be the
laborer who owns his own vineyard and eats his own fruit. What is that but private property. Socialism has no place in the Christian
faith.
Now that’s the origin of private property, that’s the origin of the
basis for “thou shalt not steal.” Now we
have the means or the agencies of theft, Hosea lists them for us in this
passage. In verse 1, they can be
individuals, corporations or companies, groups of people who band together for
various purposes, and then the government.
All three of these are listed as agencies involved in theft. It doesn’t mean they have to be involved in
theft, but through sin they are involved in theft.
Contrast that, the agencies of theft, with some more truths of the
Scripture as to property and stealing.
There are three ways that the Bible speaks of as the proper way to
acquire property. There are basically only
these three ways; all other ways are illegitimate. The first way is by labor, again Genesis
2:26-27; Proverbs 13:11 and Ephesians 4:28.
In Ephesians 4:28 Paul goes so far as to say that if he does labor let
him not eat. So labor is the key means
of acquiring property. Another means is
the inheritance. Inheritance, this is the
Abrahamic Covenant concept. The
Abrahamic Covenant is family inheritance.
The acquisition of land in the nation Israel and the Mosaic Law was by
family inheritance. And you even have Christians in this country who are for
inheritance taxes; such Christians are obviously socialists at heart who
apparently entertain the motion that if I am wealthy automatically I am a
sinner and I must be penalized. They try
to smash the big rich families, inheritance tax, tax them out of existence is
the cry. Such is theft; inheritance of
property from your parents is your right Scripturally. Inheritance is a godly way to gain property;
in fact it is such a godly means of gaining property that it is this concept
that is used in the New Testament, we inherit our blessings from the Lord Jesus
Christ. Inheritance of property is very bona fide. All inheritance taxes are anti-Biblical.
Then gifts, these are the three ways.
Theft is always the fourth way; theft wants to go around these three
legitimate means of inheriting wealth, short-circuit God’s means. Now I’m going to go to Exodus 22, we’ll go
through about a dozen examples of theft to enlarge our concept of what the Jew
meant when he talked about theft; we think very narrowly. So let’s turn back to Exodus 22 and have a
study of what is theft; examples of theft.
This is what is meant by “thou shalt not steal.” As we go through this passage I want you also
to notice something; notice how theft is dealt with inside the nation
Israel. There is a Biblical solution to
the theft problem and it is not locking someone in jail. Jails were never used in Scripture as
punishment. Jails are the most inhumane
means of punishment, where people get put in jail they turn into animals and
then we wonder why when a person is let out of jail they go back to their ways;
they’re trained that way by being in jail.
You cage a man like an animal he’ll act like an animal. The ways of biblically punishing people are
by fines, by corporeal punishment, by capital punishment and by restitution and
it’s restitution that you see in Exodus 22.
Restitution is the Biblical answer to theft; if someone comes and rips
you off of all your furniture, according to Scripture he is to not only buy you
a complete set of furniture, he is to buy you four sets of furniture for your
house, four-fold restitution. Now you
can imagine if that were applied today to some of these characters that steal
and go into court and they get let off.
In the Mosaic Law we have restitution and watch the kind of restitution. Exodus 22:1 is the first example, “If a man
shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five
oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.”
Several things to notice about verse 1 so we can apply it to our own
situation. This would refer to what we
call fencing, or when a person steals a bunch of goods and they fence it out to
somebody to sell it off in some other place, when the property has been stolen
and removed from the area in other words, and the person is caught, then he
must restore four-fold or five-fold. Now
why is it that restitution is 400% of the value of the goods stolen. There’s
several reasons that enter in. One is
because 100% of it is the goods replacement, the rest of it includes such
factors as profit that would have been made from the ox or the sheep during the
time it was absent. Suppose it took them
a year to catch this guy; during that year what kind of profit could have been
made had the farmer still had his sheep or his oxen. That is taken into account as part of the
restitution.
Another part of it is replacement value isn’t always equal to actual
value; for example, if you have an older car and somebody goes out here and
steals it, the actual value of your car may be $500 or something, but your
replacement value may be much more than that.
So this is why the actual cash value of the goods stolen is not that
which is restituted. In the Bible it is
a 400% or 500% restitution. You see,
this has a built-in wisdom to it. When
you go through this I don’t want you to say oh well, that’s Exodus 22, that’s
something about the law and that kind of stuff.
Look at it and look for wisdom principles. There are certain reasons why the Law was
designed this way, and if you think through a moment what do you suppose would
be one of the beneficial results if the courts went over to a restitution
concept? Number one, what would have to
happen to the person whole stole? He
would have to work, and in the very process of laboring to pay off the goods
that he stole, he would learn, according to Ephesians 4:28 the proper behavior
pattern that was missing in his life that led him to steal. So many of these punishments aren’t just
plopped down here to be mean to people, they are built in wisdom; tremendous
insight.
Exodus 22:2, another concept of theft, “If a thief be found breaking
up,” it should be breaking in, “and be smitten that he die, there shall no
blood be shed for him. [3] If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood
shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he
shall be sold for his theft.” Now verse
2 is talking about a nighttime burglary and it’s saying that if you are in
building and someone burglarizes that building in the dark, you have the right
to kill that person and God will not hold you responsible for it, if a person
comes at you in the dark. Because one,
you cannot see them and therefore you cannot apprehend them; the reason why a
lighter sentence was given in the sun is because you don’t have to kill a
person, you can see them and you can get them later. But in darkness you can’t see them and so if
you kill… besides in the darkness you couldn’t tell whether they had a weapon
or not. So Biblically and scripturally
it’s all right to kill someone who’s breaking at night.
In verse 3 we have a daytime breaking, and during the daytime breaking
it is not right to just kill the burglar.
In daytime break-ins you can see who he is and you can apprehend him
later; you have witnesses that see, and capital punishment is not to be given
for theft of property. It is in verse 2
because this is looked upon as a manslaughter type situation. So you have a daytime burglary in which a
person will make full restitution. But notice the last of verse 3, “if he has
nothing,” and most of the people who are habitual crooks don’t, because most of
them are drug addicts and they have about as much cash as it takes them to go
pick up some more of the stuff, “if he has nothing, he will be sold for his
theft.” The selling at the end of verse
3 is in “slaveitude,” not permanently,
until he can pay for that theft.
[question asked: can’t hear] No,
in the laws of Israel that didn’t happen, it would be a possibility and we’d
have to design it so that wouldn’t happen.
This is what obviously goes on in prostitution and drug circles, but in
this case when we have the full restitution and the selling we know from the
context of the Torah that this selling in verse 3 was selling under the
priesthood; the priesthood regulated this selling, so it wasn’t that the guy
was doomed in “slaveitude” forever; he would be released as soon as he paid for
the property, he worked it off.
Exodus 22:4, “If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether
it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double.” Notice how it drops, restitution for this
crime is only 200% of value; the reason for that is that this is not a fence
type situation; the goods haven’t been delivered to somebody else for sale somewhere
else. This is not a fencing type
operation, the goods were caught in possession.
But even when the goods are caught in possession, notice the Bible does
not have 100% restitution, it has 200% restitution.
Further, verses 5-6, now this gets into an area that you never think of
when it comes to “thou shalt not steal,” but this is part of that commandment
so pay attention to it and see how far reaching these commandments were. There’s a sensitivity about the Ten
Commandments that we don’t get by reading them fast. Now watch, “If a man shall cause a field or
vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another
man’s field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard,
shall he make restitution. [6] If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the
stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he
that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.” This deals with what we’ll call accidental
liability. This would be considered in
Scripture as part of “thou shalt not steal.”
Now you see, we think when we see that commandment, “thou shalt not
steal,” we think of somebody actively going in and stealing something. But the Bible goes beyond just that, the
Bible says you steal when you don’t care for the other person’s property. It’s just the act of neglect for the other
person’s property, that is stealing. You
don’t have to be guilty of “thou shalt not steal” by actively stealing; you can
be guilty of “thou shalt not steal” by far more passive activity of just not giving
a damn for somebody else’s property.
That’s basically “thou shalt not steal,” same concept. But do you see how big and how far reaching
that commandment is. We’ll see more of
this.
Exodus 22:7, “If a man shall deliver unto his neighbor money or stuff to
keep, and it be stolen out of the man's house; if the thief be found, let him
pay double. [8] If the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall
be brought unto the judges, to see whether he have put his hand unto his
neighbor’s goods. [9] For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for
ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another
challenges to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges;
and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbor.” See, 200%.
[10] If a man deliver unto his neighbor an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or
any beast, to keep; and it die, or be hurt, or driven away, no man seeing it:
[11] Then shall an oath of the LORD be between them both, that he hath not put
his hand unto his neighbor’s goods; and the owner of it shall accept thereof,
and he shall not make it good. [12] And if it be stolen from him, he shall make
restitution unto the owner thereof. [13] If it be torn in pieces, then let him bring
it for witness, and he shall not make good that which was torn.”
Now the point there deals with what we would call in our modern society
as embezzlement. This is embezzlement of
goods that have been entrusted to you.
Embezzlement is considered “thou shalt not steal.” When somebody gives you the right of property
for holding purposes, and you cause that property to be destroyed by negligence
or something else, this is considered “thou shalt not steal,” embezzlement.
Exodus 22:14, another kind of “thou shalt not steal.” “And if a man borrow ought of his neighbor,
and it be hurt, or die, the owner thereof being not with it, he shall surely
make it good.” Now in verse 14 we have
property on loan, so if the person borrows property and while he has borrowed
the property something happens to it, he is held liable and if he doesn’t make
restitution, part of “thou shalt not steal.”
Verse 15, another example, “But if the owner thereof be with it, he
shall not make it good: if it be an hired thing, it came for his hire.” That’s what we’re talking about, say a man’s
using machinery in an employer’s shop, the owner being with it means he is
using the property under the direct command of the owner and in that situation
he doesn’t make restitution because the reason he’s using that piece of
property is because his employer or the owner told him to use it, and in that
situation therefore he does not make restitution. This is property that is held under the
owner’s direct supervision, or it could be hired thing, a rental type thing,
where it’s rented out, and presumably the person took the risk when he rented
out his property to be used. So if the
property’s been rented, he does not make restitution for it in this case.
Finally, Exodus 22:16-17, a final form of theft, of all things, “And if
a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely
endow her to be his wife. [17] If her father utterly refuse to give her unto
him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.” So virginity was looked upon as something
which could be stolen, and something which would be therefore, “thou shalt not
steal.”
There are some more crimes which we’ll look at, Exodus 21:16, another
particular area that you’d never dream would be counted as “thou shalt not
steal.” And as we look at these, so
these can directly apply to your life as a believer, just catch the spirit of
the text here. Just like “thou shalt not
murder,” it can be active or passive, and the same thing with property. There is a spirit or mental attitude that
accompanies this whole thing and you want to kind of capture that as you look
through these details. “Thou shalt not
steal” basically means to respect property, not just yours but other people’s
property. By the way, this is something
children are not taught today, to respect property. You go into the schools and you see furniture
torn up, nobody is teaching respect for property; oh, that’s not mine, I can do
with it as I please.
Exodus 21:16, kidnapping was considered theft. “He that steals a man and sells him, or if he
be found in his hand, shall surely be put to death.” Now notice, this is the only theft that we have
seen so far for which restitution has not been made. Remember what we said; what was the principle
in the Bible for dealing with the sin of theft?
Always restitution of some percent of the value of the product
stolen. Now in verse 16, what is the value
of the man? The value of the man is
infinity, life is infinite, so therefore again we have this internally
consistent thing about the Torah. Life
is never paid for, by fines, by restitution, by anything. The man who kidnaps has stolen that which is infinite,
since he has stolen that which is infinite restitution means the only thing he
has access to equal to that is his own life.
And that must be given.
Now this is why you see in the Scripture murder is never paid for like
it is today; it’s never paid for. You
don’t pay for it by a jail term or anything else, you pay for it with your own
life, and it’s not merciless, it’s simply reflecting a Biblical norm and
standard.
Another area of theft, probably very common, Leviticus 19:13, these
aren’t all the passages on theft but I just selected these to kind of give you
an overview of what it means, “thou shalt not steal.” All these things could have been going on in
Ephraim at the time Hosea made his accusation, not just the simple
burglar. Think of it, there could have
been corporate business engaging in fraud lent practices; there could have been
embezzling property that had been delegated, there could have been cases
involving accidental liability going on.
There might have been situations where ranchers let their animals out
and they went in the farmer’s field and ruined the farmer’s field. This could have been going on in Ephraim, and
it would come to us through the pages of the Word, “thou shalt not steal,” and
we read that as though it’s talking about burglary and we fail to realize it
could have been talking about just a farmer not repairing his fence. That would be considered negligence and would
be considered a violation of “thou shalt not steal.”
Leviticus 19:13, “Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him;
the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until
morning,” that means immediate payment of wages. And that’s a form of theft. The Bible stresses the immediacy of the
payment, never mind this business about I’ll pay you 85 months from now for
what you’ve done. A Christian always ought to do this, in his business
relationships and so on. If someone does
a job for you, you see to it that that person is paid as fast as you can. If you can’t, you had no business asking him
to do the job. Otherwise you are guilty
of “thou shalt not steal.”
Leviticus 19:35, “Ye shall do no un righteousness in judgment, in
measure of length, in weight, or in quantity. [36] Just balances, just weights,
a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have; I am the LORD your God, who
brought you out of the land of Egypt.”
This is talking about balances, this is involving the theft of
counterfeit currency, it would be inflation today, even when the government
does it it is inflating the currency, it is adjusting the weights and the
balances. If you want to see a three-ring
circus going on, it’s so pathetic because people are going to get hurt by it,
but it’s actually ludicrous to watch what’s happening. The government is trying to fight inflation
and depression at the same time. First
one day they come out with the idea, we’re going to tax, too much cash afloat,
and the next day, oh, we’ve got to make lots of jobs. Now you can’t fight inflation and depression
at the same time. No way! The best thing to do and the unions and the
companies won’t let the government do it, but the best thing the government
could do now would be to shut down, good bye baby, see you next year; the best
thing the government could do is nothing, just let supply and demand take over,
it’ll take over after while, unemployed people can’t buy goods, and goods that
aren’t bought are going to get lowered in price. So it’ll all work out but nobody is going to
do that so we’ll just go on. Every day
that inflation goes on the government has stolen from you, and Americans have
lost billions of dollars from inflation.
We have lost more from inflation than any other source.
Some more things about theft, we’ve covered some examples about
theft. Now all these examples have kind
of hinted at something, and in this next passage of Scripture we get very
explicit at what all these passages are hinting at. There’s been something here and it should
have disturbed you as you’ve looked at these, that the Bible doesn’t mean theft
is just reaching out and grabbing something, there’s something about neglect of
property is also equally considered as theft.
And sure enough, we have it explicitly stated in Deuteronomy 22:1. At one time in the western world this passage
was used by common law in England to justify what was called the police power
of the citizen, the concept that every citizen can arrest. And this was part of British common law. It is still part of American law for felonies
in some states. And it comes
historically from this passage, even though the lawyers that write the stuff
and deal with it probably never heard of Deuteronomy, but historically this is
where it came from.
Deuteronomy 22:1, “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox, or his sheep go
astray, and hide yourself [withhold thy help] from them; thou shalt in any case
bring them again unto thy brother. [2] And if thy brother be not near unto
thee, of if thou know him not, then you shall bring it unto thine own house,
and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and you shall
restore it to him again.” In other
words, the individual citizen is responsible for other citizen’s property. You are responsible as a believer for your
neighbor’s property, as far as God is concerned. If you see someone ripping him off, you do
everything you can to stop it, get the person’s license plate, get a
description, call the police, try to stop them, anything you can do. That’s your job. Verse 3, “In like manner shalt thou do with
his ass; and so shalt thou do with his raiment; and with every lost thing of
thy brother’s, which he has lost and you have found,” this is a case of loss
but it would apply also to theft. Verse
4, “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ass or his ox fall down by the way, and
withhold thy help from them, thou shall surely help him to lift them up again,”
the whole concept of the good Samaritan; the people that walked by the
roads…[tape turns]
…they say, you see what it was, it’s those nasty religious people just
walk by and they have no heart, but it was the Samaritan that had the heart and
the Samaritan stopped. That’s not it at
all, and no Jew has ever understood the parable of the good Samaritan that way;
the parable of the good Samaritan was that the people who didn’t stop broke the
Law in Jesus’ concept. Jesus is just
enlarging “thou shalt not steal” and saying when the priests walked by the
injured man on the road they violated Deuteronomy 22; it wasn’t the case that
they could have or couldn’t have, it was the case that they were morally
obligated to stop and they didn’t.
Deuteronomy 22:24, another example of this, and showing the police power
of the citizens. This is in the middle
of a race type of legislation, “Then you shall bring them both out unto the
gate of that city, and you shall stone them with stones that they die; the
damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he has
humbled his neighbor’s wife. So thou
shalt put away evil from among you.” Now
why did the kill the woman in this case, even though they were involved in what
appears to be a rape scene; the point is that the woman was in the city and she
could have cried for help and she didn’t, and therefore she’s held accountable
just as much as the man is held accountable.
If she doesn’t make an attempt to stop the rape, that’s her fault
according to God. And the point in the
Mosaic Law is that in the city, help would have been available.
What is the presupposition of verse 24?
The obvious presupposition is this poor girl could get help, if all
she’d do is but cry, there would be help.
That’s the presupposition. This
verse presupposes an active policing citizenry.
In verse 24 and this passage you have citizens as policemen; you have
the right, you have always had the right, it’s part of British common law
tradition and part of our American law tradition, that every citizen has the
right to deal with crime directly, not just through the police.
Let’s turn to Hosea 7, having seen what “thou shalt not steal” means,
come back to Hosea. Now when he says
that they practice fraud, now when he says that the thieve, both individually
and corporately, what are we going to think of?
Are we going to think of just breaking and entering, are we just to
think of the lone bandit, or are we just going to think of the burglar? No, we are going to think on the wide scale,
that simple neglect for our neighbor’s property could have been the leading
social characteristic of the northern kingdom.
The “I don’t care” attitude, someone’s breaking into the house over
there, gee, let’s draw the blind. That’s
how they do it in New York City, someone gets raped outside the apartment house
nobody does anything. In Hosea’s
terminology that is stealing; that is murder.
So you see these commands are a lot more far reaching than just the
narrow concept.
So when we read in Hosea 7:2,
“And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness:
now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face.” Now that Hosea says in that first part of
verse 2, that “they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their
wickedness,” it’s God speaking through Hosea, that has reference to the human
conscience that has been destroyed in the northern kingdom. During this time, remember, in the northern
kingdom you had a period of destruction under Jeroboam II. It was a time of prosperity, it was a time
when in the northern kingdom was characterized by this lackadaisical attitude
about property. Oh, let Joe worry about
Joe’s thing. Hosea would say that is
theft, and “consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness,”
in other words, living one’s life before the eyes of God; conscience had been
destroyed.
“Now their own doings have wrapped them up” literally and there’s a
Hebrew word picture here. The picture is
this, these people, the idea is that the eyes of God are here, looking down,
and they viewed it very anthropomorphically, and there’s an irony in all of
this because the verb that is used here, “now their own doings have beset them”
is the word to wrap a cloak around, and the picture he has is that because they
failed to take in consideration other people’s property, it’s like they have a
big blanket wrapped around them and now they can’t see God and God’s standing
right in front of them. That’s the
concept in verse 2. They don’t consider Me, they’ve wiped out their
consciences, so now look what’s happened, they have wrapped themselves up in a
blanket, they can’t see me and I’m standing right in front of them.
Hosea 7:3, this extends the area into government, so with verse 3
together with verse 1 we now have the three means of theft; the individual, the
corporation, and the government. “They make the king glad with their
wickedness, and the princes with their lies.”
So you have expediency is the order of the day throughout the entire
social order.
Now we want to conclude tonight with verses 4-7, what we call the hot
oven analogy. Now this is going to shift
gears a little bit and start with the concept of theft but it’s going to leave
the details of theft, presumably we’ve all seen the details of theft now, we
know what “thou shalt not steal” means, so Hosea is going to shift gears and go
back to a fundamental principle of our sin nature. So before we get into the hot oven, let’s
turn to Genesis 4 to see that principle.
It’s easy to see in Genesis 4, then we’ll come back to Hosea’s oven and
see what’ he’s talking about and why it’s talking about making bread in the hot
oven. In Genesis 4:7 we have a
fundamental principle of human psychology, which you’ll never get in a
psychology class, “If thou doest well,” God says to Cain, “slat thou not be
accepted? And if thou doest not well,
sin lies at the door.” The word “lie”
means it crouches, it’s a picture of an animal ready to spring, he’s all tense,
every muscle is tense and ready to go.
Now when he does that, why does God use this crouching and this assault
concept for the sin nature? Because
there’s a warning in here to Cain, but it’s also a warning to every
believer. “If you do not well,” that
means if you make it a habit of defying
the Word of God, if you make it a habit of going on negative volition over and
over and over and over, “sin lies at the door,” in other words, your sin nature
lies there with all this potential energy, ready to explode and you keep
feeding negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, you get these
big –R learned behavior patterns developed and sooner or later you are going to
lose control of your own sin nature.
This is the self-destruction mechanism that God has built into the human
soul. For a while we can control ourselves but after a point is reached we lose
control. Alcoholism would be kind of an overt illustration of this; a person
says I can stop any time; bologna, they can’t stop until they acknowledge that
they can’t stop, and then finally they can stop. All right, the same thing with sin, if you
allow this thing to go on and on and on and don’t cut it off, you are asking
for an explosion.
Now come back to the hot oven analogy of Hosea. He’s saying that this happens nationally as
well as individually and he’s going to illustrate it by the last years of the
history of the northern kingdom. So
we’ll have to go through and examine the hot oven and then we’re going to look
at history for a moment to see what he’s talking about.
Hosea 7:4, “They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who
ceases from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened. [5]
In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he
stretched out his hand with scorners. [6] For they have made ready their heart
like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleeps all the night; in the
morning it burns as a flaming fire. [7] They are all hot as an oven, and have
devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them
that calls unto me.” Now if you’re like
me the first time you read that is the King James, what is going on with this
thing; it doesn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason, no connected thought, what’s
happening. I see adulterers, ovens, and
kings, how do we tie all that together.
All right, let’s tie it together; let’s go through it slowly and pick
out the analogy.
Hosea 7:4, “They are all adulterers,” there’s your word familiar to
Hosea and students for idolatry; the adulterer is one who is not satisfied by
his right partner and so therefore the idolater is not satisfied by his right
God; it’s always God plus a gimmick; that’s the heart and center of
idolatry. God plus something. Now he makes the analogy; the simile is
introduced by the word “as,” the analogy starts in verse 4 and ends at the end
of verse 6, and is interrupted by verse 5.
So if you just draw a parenthesis around verse 5; verse 5 is a
parenthetical expression in the middle of the hot oven illustration. So you
start the illustration with the word “as” in verse 4 and end it with the
“flaming fire” in verse 6.
Let’s look at the hot oven, “as an oven heated by the baker,” and this
is a portable oven that would be moved around to bake bread in, it was probably
made of pottery, just kind of an open sided thing and they’d build a fire
around the thing, get it hot, and they’d use that as an oven. It was kind of a pottery oven, “as an oven
heated by the baker, who ceases from raising” now the word “raising” means to
build the fire and stir the fire, so the idea is that a baker who wants to bake
his bread heats the oven for some time.
These ovens took time, it wasn’t just waltzing in and turning on an “on”
switch. They had to have long
preparation to get this oven good and hot.
So the first thing the baker would do before he mixed the dough would be
to start the fire because that was the thing that took the longest. So he’d start the fire and get this thing
hot, and then he leaves it; that’s what the word “ceases from raising” means,
it’s not talking about the dough here, he “ceases from raising” the fire. “… after he hath kneaded the dough, until it
be leavened.” So his first procedure
would be to light the oven, then he goes and mixes and gets the dough together
and so on, and then it leavens. Now this is a picture that Hosea says… this is
what we call wisdom teaching in the prophets, there’s an image here that you
have to pull out.
First he lights the fire, all of these are going to have analogies to
our souls, so we have to outline the procedure.
He lights the fire, then he leaves the fire and he prepares the
dough. Then the dough leavens, so the
dough is leavening here, “until it leavens.”
All this time he hasn’t dealt with the fire in this portable oven, he’s
left it all alone but the fire is still going on, it’s getting hotter and
hotter and hotter. Meanwhile, the dough
is leavening.
Now he interrupts at this point his simile; we’re going to skip the
interruption and pass on to verse 6 so we won’t get sidetracked, then we’ll
come back and pick up his interruption.
“For they have made ready their heart like an oven,” in other words, a
three step procedure, “they have made ready their heart” means that they have
started into rebellion against God’s Word; the sin nature is heating up, just
like in Genesis 4:7 with that animal crouched ready to spring, they have fed
their sin nature like the baker prepares the fire by putting wood in the fire,
they have prepared their sin nature by disobedient. “… while they lie in wait: their baker sleeps
all the night; in the morning it burns as a flaming fire.” In other words, all night is the time when
the dough is being prepared. Now what is
the dough a picture of? The dough is a
picture of a –R learned behavior pattern or patterns, that like leaven, are
slowly increasing and increasing and increasing and increasing, and they’re
going to be ready, and when they reach a certain point of readiness, then all
hell is going to break loose, literally, all hell, all demonic forces are going
to take advantage of this kind of situation.
That was the warning of Genesis 4:7, if you continue to feed your sin
nature there is going to come a time when you actually lose control over your
own sin nature, it gets so bad. This is
the mark of compound carnality. So the
“morning” at the end of verse 6, is when the bread is put in the oven, the oven
is hot, and in the morning the bread is put in the oven and this is when the
finished product is made. And the point
is that once the bread is baked, the dough is no longer pliable, it’s a
finished product. So what he’s saying is
that once the sin nature explodes you’ve done irreparable damage. This thing has been heating, the sin nature’s
been working away and you’ve slowly cultivated a –R learned behavior
pattern.
Let’s take a specific example, let’s suppose we have a person who has a
tendency to steal. The old sin nature is on fire; on fire means they’re out of
fellowship. So they’re out of fellowship
in simple carnality, but they have a learned behavior pattern of theft, and all
the preparation of the bread for the oven would be little acts of theft, mental
attitude acts or over acts but constantly increasing the facility and the habit
pattern of thievery to the point where now the sin nature on fire, out of
fellowship, all that restraining grace is suddenly released and now the person
finds himself (quote) “driven” to do some violent act. And then he thinks afterwards, did I do that? I was temporarily insane, how could I… you
sure were but you’re responsible for getting temporarily insane. So the explosion is temporary insanity.
Now Hosea 7:5 was put in as an example of how they had stoked the fire,
the sin nature on fire of the northern kingdom.
“In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of
wine” literally became sick with fever of wine;” we don’t know what the day of
the king was, whether this was his birthday, we would just translate “in the
king’s day,” apparently it was a holiday, “In the king’s day the princes became
sick with heat,” or “fever of wine, he” the king “stretched out his hand with
scorners.” The scorners are these
princes, see the whole club is getting together and the word “scorn” is the
Hebrew word for lutz, and lutz is a person in advanced carnality
or compound carnality, it’s a word we had in Proverbs for a person who had gone
on and on and on and on to the point conscience had been seared, defiance of
authority, a lutz would be a person,
not who innocently sins but who schemes, he deliberately and defiantly schemes
against the Word of God, that kind of person.
So he’s the one that the king and the princes and the princes are all in
one big club together with. This is the
leadership, and with all these kind of people, this kind of person involved in
high places, you’re on fire.
These kings are out of fellowship, let’s go through it again so we see
the process because it’s going to come to a climax that was observable in
history. Lighting the fire equals the
general, we’ll just say the general disobedience of both the people and the
king, shown in this case by theft. The
bread, the preparation of the dough, is a preparation of the habit pattern, a
specific habit pattern of defiance against God’s word in this area, say of
property rights for example, and it’s a cultivation of this, the government
cultivates it. The corporations
cultivate it. The individuals cultivate
it until finally verse 7, and this is the climax. Hosea 7:7, “They are all hot as an oven, and
have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen; [there is none among
them that calls unto me],” and here’s what happens; here is the last seven
rulers of the northern kingdom.
If you look at this chart observe carefully the length of reigns of
these men. The last king to rule any
length of time was Jeroboam II. Jeroboam
II was the king of prosperity for the northern kingdom; it was during his reign
that Hosea began his ministry. But
apparently this chapter is written all the way down close to 721 BC when the
kingdom would fall. What had happened?
Under Jeroboam theft had been encouraged as a governmental policy, maybe
not in overt activities but it doesn’t have to be overt, all it can be is
negligence of the worth private property; they might have a lot of systematic taxes
on inheritance, they might have had things like this that are basically
unscriptural, they could have had these things going on and on and it would be
like the oven getting hotter and hotter because they are encouraging disrespect
for property.
This is the kind of thing that developed in Jeroboam’s era and
immediately after that, because disrespect for property, for God’s Word, for
men’s lives, became prominent, look at what happened to the kings. Turn to 2 Kings 15:8, look what happened to
the once proud, prosperous northern kingdom that was so politically
stable. “In the thirty and eight year of
Azariah, king of Judah, did Zechariah, the son of Jeroboam, reign over Israel
in Samaria six months. [9] And he did that which was evil in the sight of the
LORD, as his fathers had done; he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the
son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.”
And verse 10, “And Shallum, the son of Jabesh, conspired against him,”
see the conspiracy, see what’s happened, they’ve got something started and they
can’t stop the thing. So he “conspired
against him and smote him before the people, and slew him, and reigned in his
stead.” As they tolerated negligence toward
human life it came back upon them, the birds came home to roost. And the very rulers who under Jeroboam had
relished… they didn’t care about individual lives, what happened? Their lives began to be taken, Zechariah’s
life taken in the year 752 BC, succeeded by Shallum in 751 BC.
2 Kings 15:13, “Shallum, the son of Jabesh, began to reign in the nine
and thirtieth year of Uzziah, king of Judah, and he reigned a full month in
Samaria.” He was replaced by Menahem,
who reigned for almost 9 years. Verse
17, “In the nine and thirtieth year of Azariah, king of Judah, began Menahem,
the son of Gadi, to reign over Israel” and so on. Pekahiah, the next man reigned three
years. Pekah reigned for 9 years, and
finally Hoshea reigned and that was the end of the end of the southern
kingdom. You see the instability, very
few of these men followed father-son dynasties; there were no dynasties, it was
chaos, complete instability.
Now come back to Hosea 7, this is what Hosea is talking about, real
history. He says I’ll show you a truth
about your nation, you people, you have the Torah, God told you what you should
be doing, you don’t do it, you take a very narrow view of “thou shalt not
steal, thou shalt not murder,” you’re not concerned with the value of life and
property, it’ll all come back on you.
And it did, that’s why he closes out why he says “there is none,”
pathetic thing at the end of verse 7, “there is none among them that calls unto
me,” in other words, even in the eleventh hour of the nation when everything
was falling apart, one administration succeeding another administration which
succeeded another administration, complete political chaos, in spite of all
this you’d think somebody would say hey, don’t you think we might have a
spiritual problem. No one.
And so it ends with this lament, “none among them is a caller of me,”
it’s a participle, it means part of their character, none of them. None of them is a caller, no one ever comes
to me to find out what is the trouble.
Next week we’ll begin in verse 8 with another type of sin; you’ve heard
the expression being half-baked; verse 8 is where it came from.