I work with a lot of dentists, and in those projects, I’ve seen a lot of “before” pictures of really bad tooth problems that they’ve fixed. Black, crooked, chipped or even missing teeth. Teeth that look so rotten that they look completely beyond hope. And in every example, the dentists have an “after” picture of a straight, white, beautiful smile.
You’d think with such impressive and obvious evidence of their success in not only helping their patients keep their teeth but give them an impressively white smile – despite a sugar-saturated diet – that people would be more eager to go to the dentist. But the results – a bright, healthy smile – typically don’t overcome the well-documented fear of going to the dentist. And in order to save my teeth from my love of anything with sugar in it, my dentist has to use sharp objects in sensitive places to ruthlessly go after plaque and decay.
God’s words to the northern kingdom of Israel in Hosea 1:2-9 are likewise shockingly harsh. As a result of their pervasive sin and idolatry, because of the complete moral wreckage of their culture as a nation, God pronounces judgment on the rebellious 10 northern tribes of Israel. He commands Hosea to be a living object lesson to them, and commands Hosea to go and marry “a wife of whoredom,” comparing Israel to an unfaithful wife, a prostitute (vs. 2). As part of the object lesson, God next commands Hosea to name his firstborn son after a place that was synonymous with Israel’s defeat (vs. 4-5). Next, He tells Hosea to name his wife’s next child, a daughter, “Lo-ruhama” – which means “no mercy” – because He’s not going to have mercy on them “or forgive them at all” (vs. 6). Finally, Hosea’s wife has a third child, whom God commands Hosea to name “Lo-ammi” – meaning, “not my people.” God was rejecting the 10 northern tribes of Israel. “You are not my people, and I am not your God.”
This doesn’t sound like the “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” that we learned about in Sunday School, does it? In The Problem with Pain, C.S. Lewis described the common view of God:
“We want not so much a Father but a grandfather in heaven, a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?”
Like the dentist, when God goes after sin and decay, He is ruthless and he is going to scrape and drill until the rottenness and decay is gone. Israel’s sin and decay is His enemy. His goal is to present His bride to Himself “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27). And Israel – just like Hosea’s cheating wife, Gomer, and just like us – was pretty rotten. What if a dentist looked in your mouth, saw cavities and decay everywhere, and then – because he was a nice guy and wanted to avoid causing you any pain – smiled and said, “looks great!” For God to ignore Israel’s sin would not have been loving, and so – sharp tools in hand – God went after the rottenness with all the ruthlessness that an all-powerful God could muster.
Beginning in verse 10, God offers a picture of the result.
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.
As Sam Gamgee said in The Lord of the Rings, “is everything sad going to come untrue?” God’s promise to Israel – and to us – is exactly that.
You and I should take this promise very personally. We owe our salvation to it, as we’ve been “grafted in” (Romans 11) as part of God’s fulfillment of His promise to redeem His people. As Peter writes to Gentile Christians:
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:10).
We have this idea that for God to be loving, He has to care above all else about our happiness. That’s a very shallow view of love, though, isn’t it? To truly love someone is to want the best for that person. And what is “best” is often not what makes a person happy (as any parent knows!). And God – who is the embodiment of Love – won’t tolerate the imposters, the short-term, false gods that all too often we chase after.
Are you ruthless with the sin, the rottenness and decay in your life? Jesus commanded us to be.
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (Matthew 5:29-30)
In a sermon series on Hosea, if you’re elbowing your spouse or thinking of someone who needs to hear this, you’re missing the point. The message of Hosea for us doesn’t leave any room for that. We – you and me – are each guilty, we all tolerate sin and rottenness and decay in our lives. Instead of treating it like gangrene, we pretend it’s not that bad. After all, everyone around us is doing it, right?
If you haven’t noticed yet, this is the story of the entire Bible, though. While God’s judgment on the pervasive sin of Israel is merciless, stark, and complete, the point is not to destroy them. God – the faithful spouse – is there, waiting to reconcile. His promise remains for those who are willing to drop the temporary fun of false gods and give ourselves completely to God, the embodiment of Love. Despite our unfaithfulness, God continues to wait with open arms.
Will you continue to ignore the rottenness and decay of sin in your life? Or will you embrace the fairy tale of an eternity in the consuming, uncompromising, perfect love of God?
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