worship

There Is No Other Savior.

When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israel, but he incurred guilt through Baal and died. And now they sin more and more, and make for themselves metal images, idols skillfully made of their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of “Those who offer human sacrifice kiss calves!” Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes early away, like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor or like smoke from a window. But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior. It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought; but when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me. So I am to them like a lion; like a leopard I will lurk beside the way. I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs; I will tear open their breast, and there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild beast would rip them open. – Hosea 13:1-8 ESV

It would seem that the northern kingdom of Israel was unfamiliar with the old adage, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” Because that is exactly what they had done. They were guilty of turning on the very one who had chosen them and blessed them by making them a nation. When God had divided the nation of Israel after Solomon’s epic fall from grace, He had chosen Jeroboam from the tribe of Ephraim to be the first king of the northern kingdom. That is why God held the tribe of Ephraim responsible for the direction the nation had taken. It was Jeroboam who came up with the bright idea to make two golden calves and establish their own places of worship, so that the people would not be tempted to return to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh. Eighteen years into his reign, Jeroboam rebelled against the southern kingdom of Judah and declared war against them. King Abijah of Judah had some very condemning words to say to the people of Israel just prior to their battle.

And now you think to withstand the kingdom of the Lord in the hand of the sons of David, because you are a great multitude and have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made you for gods. Have you not driven out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made priests for yourselves like the peoples of other lands? Whoever comes for ordination with a young bull or seven rams becomes a priest of what are no gods. – 2 Chronicles 13:8-9 ESV

Abijah warned them, “O sons of Israel, do not fight against the Lord, the God of your fathers, for you cannot succeed” (2 Chronicles 13:12 ESV). And he was proved right. The southern kingdom of Judah ended up routing the Israelites in battle, destroying 500,000 of their men in the process. “Thus the men of Israel were subdued at that time, and the men of Judah prevailed, because they relied on the Lord, the God of their fathers” (2 Chronicles 13:18 ESV). King Jeroboam escaped, but would never regain his power. In fact, the chronicler tells us, “Jeroboam did not recover his power in the days of Abijah. And the Lord struck him down, and he died” (2 Chronicles 13:20 ESV). As Hosea puts it, “He incurred guilt through Baal and died” (Hosea 13:1 ESV).

But Jeroboam left a legacy. His golden calves, false priests and pagan worship centers remained. And as Hosea makes clear, even with Jeroboam gone, the people of Israel “sin more and more, and make for themselves metal images, idols skillfully made of their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen” (Hosea 13:2 ESV). Despite their humiliating defeat by Judah and the loss of their king, the people of Israel remained committed to their false gods. They stubbornly clung to their man-made idols, crafting them out of precious metals and then kissing them, desperately hoping that these false gods could become viable substitutes for the one true God.

But Hosea warns that their efforts will prove futile. Their days are numbered. He describes their future as bleak, saying, “they will disappear like the morning mist, like dew in the morning sun, like chaff blown by the wind, like smoke from a chimney” (Hosea 13:3 NLT). And God reminds them, “I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior” (Hosea 13:4 ESV). He was to be their one and only God. Those idols to whom they offered sacrifices were not gods at all. They were statues made by men and were incapable of hearing them, let alone helping them. There was only one source of salvation and that was God. He alone could be their savior. He alone had the power to hear their prayers and provide them with help and hope. It was He who had delivered them from captivity in Egypt and led them to the land of Canaan. It was He who had provided them with victory over the inhabitants of the land and given them farms, vineyards and houses they had not built. As God reminded Joshua, “I gave you land you had not worked on, and I gave you towns you did not build – the towns where you are now living. I gave you vineyards and olive groves for food, though you did not plant them” (Joshua 24:13 NLT). And Joshua would go on to warn the people:

So fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord alone. But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord. – Joshua 24:14-15 NLT

The people had chosen. They had decided to serve false gods rather than the God who had delivered them from captivity and blessed them beyond measure. They gladly accepted the blessings of God, but then became fat and happy, slowly forgetting the one who had chosen them and set them apart. They ended up biting the very hand that fed them. God pulls no punches in describing their unfaithfulness: “they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me” (Hosea 13:6 ESV). Once they had become satisfied with the blessings of God, they ended up forgetting the God behind the blessings. The provisions became more important than the Provider. The gifts meant more to them than the Giver. And in their minds, they rationalized that if one God is good, more gods is better. In fact, their philosophy seemed to be: the more, the merrier. More gods, more blessings. More shrines, more potential saviors. But they were going to learn that there was no other savior. Like a wild beast, God was going to attack them, and their false gods would prove poor substitutes for Him and lousy saviors from destruction.

False Gods. False Hearts.

Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built; as his country improved, he improved his pillars. Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will break down their altars and destroy their pillars.

For now they will say: “We have no king, for we do not fear the Lord; and a king—what could he do for us?”  They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. The inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the calf of Beth-aven. Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests—those who rejoiced over it and over its glory—for it has departed from them. The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king. Ephraim shall be put to shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol. – Hosea 10:1-6 ESV

The nation of Israel as a prolific and fruitful grapevine was a common image in the Old Testament. The psalmist wrote, “You brought us from Egypt like a grapevine; you drove away the pagan nations and transplanted us into your land. You cleared the ground for us, and we took root and filled the land. Our shade covered the mountains; our branches covered the mighty cedars. We spread our branches west to the Mediterranean Sea; our shoots spread east to the Euphrates River” (Psalm 80:8-11 NLT). And over the years, Israel had been prolific, but also unfaithful, which led God to declare, “But I was the one who planted you, choosing a vine of the purest stock—the very best. How did you grow into this corrupt wild vine?” (Jeremiah 2:21 ESV). It seemed that the more God blessed Israel, the more unfaithful the nation became. As they grew and prospered, the number of temples to false gods, shrines and high places they built. They were using the land given to them by God to build places of worship for other gods. They were using the grain, wine, and flocks that God had graciously provided for them to make sacrifices to false gods. Their ingratitude was shocking and their audacity was unbelievable.

God was going to forcibly remove their altars by removing them from the land. He would see to it that all their places of worship were destroyed and the people taken captive to Assyria. Their false gods would not protect them. Their allies would prove to be helpless in saving them. The day was coming when they would no longer have a king. Hoshea would be the last king over the northern kingdom of Israel. We can read of what happened in 2 Kings.

King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked King Hoshea, so Hoshea was forced to pay heavy tribute to Assyria. But Hoshea stopped paying the annual tribute and conspired against the king of Assyria by asking King So of Egypt to help him shake free of Assyria’s power. When the king of Assyria discovered this treachery, he seized Hoshea and put him in prison. – 2 Kings 17:3-4 NLT

Even in defeat, the king of Israel remained stubborn and somehow thought he could escape the looming destruction, even though it had been decreed by God Himself. The fall of Israel would be great.

Then the king of Assyria invaded the entire land, and for three years he besieged the city of Samaria. Finally, in the ninth year of King Hoshea’s reign, Samaria fell, and the people of Israel were exiled to Assyria. They were settled in colonies in Halah, along the banks of the Habor River in Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

This disaster came upon the people of Israel because they worshiped other gods. They sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them safely out of Egypt and had rescued them from the power of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. They had followed the practices of the pagan nations the Lord had driven from the land ahead of them, as well as the practices the kings of Israel had introduced. The people of Israel had also secretly done many things that were not pleasing to the Lord their God. They built pagan shrines for themselves in all their towns, from the smallest outpost to the largest walled city. They set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles at the top of every hill and under every green tree. They offered sacrifices on all the hilltops, just like the nations the Lord had driven from the land ahead of them. So the people of Israel had done many evil things, arousing the Lord’s anger. Yes, they worshiped idols, despite the Lord’s specific and repeated warnings. – 2 Kings 17:5-12 NLT

Sadly, when all this eventually took place, the people of Israel would mourn the loss of their idols. There would be no repentance, no sorrow over their sins. They would cry over their missing idols, even though these false gods had done nothing to protect them or prevent their defeat at the hands of the Assyrians. This reveals just how hardened their hearts had become. Over and over again, God had sent His prophets to call the people back to Him. But they had repeatedly refused to listen. “They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and they despised all his warnings. They worshiped worthless idols, so they became worthless themselves. They followed the example of the nations around them, disobeying the Lord’s command not to imitate them” (2 Kings 17:15 NLT). So their lack of repentance led to their rejection by God.

Things had reached an all-time low in Israel. “They even sacrificed their own sons and daughters in the fire. They consulted fortune-tellers and practiced sorcery and sold themselves to evil, arousing the Lord’s anger” (2 Kings 17:17 NLT). But it had not happened over night. This had been a slow, steady decline that had begun with a refusal to obey God. And their failure to obey God was based on a lack of trust in His word. They had not believed that what He had said was true. They had not trusted that what He had promised He would do. Their disobedience had begun with disbelief and distrust. And that is how it always goes. Our failure to take God at His word creates doubt and the enemy works diligently to turn that doubt into disbelief. And soon our disbelief turns into unbelief, and before we know it we are placing our hope and trust in something or someone other than God. We look elsewhere for our satisfaction, security, safety, and salvation. Since we doubt God’s goodness, we seek it elsewhere. Since we don’t believe God will come through for us, we sell our affections to the highest bidder. Like Hosea’s unfaithful wife, Gomer, we end up prostituting ourselves to false lovers – turning our back on the One who loves us more than we could ever know. And while we may think this could never happen to us, we must always recognize that our hearts have a natural propensity for unfaithfulness. We can easily allow our disbelief to turn into disobedience. Our hearts can stray and our allegiances can shift from God to false gods. Which is why we need to seek Him constantly and trust Him diligently.

False Gods. False Hope.

They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. They return, but not upward; they are like a treacherous bow; their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. – Hosea 7:14-16 ESV

These three verses paint a very pitiful picture of the state of the people of Israel. They had become so addicted to their worship of Baal and other false gods, that even in their times of greatest need, they continued to turn to the very gods that were the cause of their problem. Like a addict who takes more drugs to stem off the tremors caused by withdrawal from those drugs, the Israelites couldn’t bring themselves to turn away from their false gods. God describes them as wailing upon their beds in agony and discomfort, but refusing to call on Him. And in order to convince the god, Baal, to give them abundant harvests of wine and grain, they gashed themselves as part of their worship. This should remind us of the encounter between the prophet, Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Elijah had challenged the 450 prophets of Baal to a contest to prove whose god was the one true God.

“Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” And all the people answered, “It is well spoken.” – 1 Kings 18:23-24 ESV

Elijah allowed the prophets of Baal to go first, reminding them, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it” (1 Kings 18:25 ESV). And we read, “they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, ‘O Baal, answer us!’ But there was no voice, and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made” (1 Kings 18:26 ESV). As Elijah mocked their efforts and the seeming indifference of their god, they amped up their efforts.

And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention. – 1 Kings 18:28-29 ESV

As part of their religious ritual, they cut themselves, mutilating their bodies in an attempt to get the attention of their god. But no one answered. No one paid attention. There was no voice and no response, because there was no god. And God accused the Israelites of calling on Baal in the same pitiful way, cutting and gashing their bodies in an effort to get the attention of a non-existent god. And the sad reality was – all they had to do was call on God in repentance and He would have answered them. He was the one who had “trained and strengthened their arms” (Hosea 7:15 ESV) and yet they refused to turn to Him. In fact, they were guilty of turning to anyone but God in their moments of need. They appealed to their false gods and they sought the aid of pagan nations, in the hopes that these unhealthy alliances would protect them from the threat posed by Assyria.

It would be easy to roll our eyes in disbelief at the stubbornness and stupidity of the Israelites. We could wonder how they could be so hardheaded as to refuse to turn to God when He was the one disciplining them for their rebellion against them. But before we shake our fingers in judgment, we need to take stock of our own lives and see if we are not guilty of the same thing. How many times have we turned to our own “gods” of comfort, and convenience when we have faced difficulty? How often have we looked to something other than God when confronted when confronted with a need of some kind? We find it so easy to turn to our own capabilities and rely on our own intelligence. If we’re sad or despondent, we turn on the TV in the hopes of finding relief, even if just for a moment. If we face a financial need, we find it easier to go into debt to get what we need rather than to ask God for help. And in doing so, we end up worse off than when we started. Our false “saviors” never alleviate or eliminate the problem, they only enhance it. Our sophisticated “gods” give us the same response as the prophets of Baal received: No voice. No answer.

One of the saddest outcomes of all of this is that the lost world laughs at those who call themselves followers of Christ, because our beliefs seem to make no difference in our lives. We claim to believe in God, but we tend to turn to anything and anyone other than God for our help and hope. We go to church on Sunday, but the rest of the week we put our faith in the gods of this world: government, money, materialism, entertainment, health, wealth, work, pleasure, and human reasoning. We chase these false gods, spiritually mutilating and harming ourselves in an effort to make them respond to our calls for help. But God wants us to call on Him. He wants us to trust Him and rely on Him for all our needs. God will not tolerate our affections for other gods. He will not compete for our love. He has proven Himself faithful and loving. He will allow us to chase after our false gods until we realize that they provide neither help or hope, and we return to Him in humble repentance.

 

Misplaced Trust.

Though you play the whore, O Israel, let not Judah become guilty.  Enter not into Gilgal, nor go up to Beth-aven, and swear not, “As the Lord lives.” Like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn; can the Lord now feed them like a lamb in a broad pasture? Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone. When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring; their rulers dearly love shame. A wind has wrapped them in its wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices. – Hosea 4L15-19 ESV

God warned the northern kingdom of Israel not to pollute the southern kingdom of Judah with its unfaithful practices. While Judah had not been exactly an icon of virtue and faithfulness as a nation, it had not yet sunk to the all-time low that Israel had. The northern kingdom was guilty of having set up pagan shrines throughout its territory, in places like Gilgal and Bethel. Hosea sarcastically referred to Bethel (house of God) as Beth-aven (house of wickedness) because of the pagan worship performed there. And he warns the people of Israel not to go to these pagan shrines and make oaths to God, because they no longer worshiped Him. Hosea knew that once they heard of God’s pending judgment against them, the Israelites would try and call on His name in an insincere attempt to avoid punishment. They were stubborn and set in their ways. They were not going to change and God was no longer going to treat them like one of His own.

Ephraim was the largest of the ten tribes that made up the northern kingdom and so God uses the name of this tribe as another reference to Israel. The greatest and largest tribe had joined themselves to idols, and they were shameless in their abandonment of God. Even the leaders of the people felt no remorse or shame. So God was going to abandon them and called on all others to do the same. He would give them up to their desires and allow them to place all their faith and trust in false gods. But a wind of judgment was coming. The punishment for their rejection of God would catch them up like a mighty wind and blow them into captivity in Assyria, where they would finally recognize the folly of their ways. But up until that moment, they would remain stubborn and unresponsive to the calls of Hosea to repent and return to God.

It is amazing how stubborn we can become when we begin to stray from our faithfulness to God. We learn to justify our actions and defend our behavior, trying to prove that what we are doing is not all that bad. We argue that we have not really abandoned God, but our actions tell a different story. We stubbornly reject conviction, demanding that what we are doing is fully acceptable. We demand that we have really rejected or abandoned God, but are simply doing what is necessary to survive in this world. That’s how we end up justifying our more subtle forms of idol worship, turning seemingly innocent things like money, success, entertainment, pleasure, education, and materialism into replacements for God. When someone tries to point out that we have made a god out of money, having placed all our hope and faith in it and seeing it as our source of hope and contentment, we stubbornly deny it. But the very thought of losing or giving up our money frightens us beyond belief. If someone suggested that entertainment had become our god, providing us with joy and pleasure, we would vehemently deny it. But if we were challenged to give it up or fast from it for a month, the very thought would send chills up our spines. If we were accused of having made a god out of material things, we would scoff, arguing that we were simply enjoying the blessings of God. But if we were encouraged to give up those things and live simpler lives, trusting in the goodness of God, we would find the very though disconcerting.

There is nothing wrong with money, success, entertainment, pleasure, education, or materialism. In fact, God has promised to bless His people. But when we make gods out of those things, giving them prominence over the one true God, we are standing on shaky ground. When we look to anything other than God for our hope, happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction or peace, we are worshiping false gods. And when the threat of losing any of these things causes us to panic, it is a good sign that we have placed more trust in them than we have in God. Even our health can become a god. We can worship good health, trying to prolong our lives by spending inordinate amounts of time and money on our physical well-being, while neglecting our spiritual health. Paul warned Timothy, “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8 NLT). The constant danger we all face as believers is making the things of this world our primary emphasis and focus. At the heart of faith is trust. It is a reliance on and belief in the promises of God, that He will supply all our needs. It is trusting that He has our best in mind and that material things, while not sinful in themselves, are not the primary indicator of God’s blessings. That is why Paul said, “I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:11-13 NLT). He had learned to place his trust in God, so that his circumstances no longer served as his source of contentment or happiness. God was enough. But can most of us say the same thing? Is God enough? Or have we developed a litany of other things we have to have in order to be happy, content, satisfied, and fulfilled? The fact that we have other things we worship is not so much the problem as our stubbornness and refusal to let go of them. God is calling us to trust in Him and Him alone. But will we?