When Our Refuges Fail

Opening Prayer

If you have your Bibles with you, feel free to turn back to Hosea chapter 6. Last week, we were grateful to have Pastor Scott, who serves on the provisional session for us, fill the pulpit and continue in our series in Hosea chapter 4.

As you've turned there now, let me pray for us that we might hear God's Word, that He might speak to us through it.

Our Father, Lord, we do thank you for this day, a day in which we are called to rest and cease from our labors, to gather together for the praise and glory of your name, to hear your Word that is once spoken and continues to speak. Lord, move in us now this evening by the working of the Holy Spirit, that we might hear clearly your Word. Lord, there is so often moments in life where we feel as though the storm beats down, as though trouble and suffering await us around every corner.

You are a God who is our refuge and our rock. Lord, tonight, as we look at Hosea chapter five, Lord, let us have ears to hear. Amen.

Scripture Reading

If you would stand with me for the reading of God's Word. We'll be reading Hosea chapter five this evening in its entirety. Hear now the word of the Lord.

"Hear this, O priests. Pay attention, O house of Israel. Give ear, O house of the king, for the judgment is for you. For you have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor. And the revolters have gone deep into slaughter, but I will discipline all of them. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me. For now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore.

"Israel is defiled. Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God, for the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they know not the Lord. The pride of Israel testifies to his face. Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt. Judah also shall stumble with them. With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him.

"He has withdrawn from them. They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord, for they have borne alien children. Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields. Blow the horn in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah. Sound the alarm at Beth Aven. We follow you, O Benjamin. Ephraim shall become a desolation in the day of punishment among the tribes of Israel.

"I make known what is sure. The princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark. Upon them I will pour out my wrath like water. Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after filth. But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah. When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, and Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to the great king.

"But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound. For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away. I will carry off, and no one shall rescue. I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.

"The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God will stand forever."

You may be seated.

Sermon Introduction

There is something universal about children playing hide and seek. You remember the game even if it's been a while since you played it. One person closes their eyes and counts. Matter of fact, several of our younger covenant children were playing hide and seek as we were setting up for service tonight even here in the room.

And children can be remarkably clever about the places that they choose to hide. Although sometimes, if you think back to maybe when your own children were very small or taking care of a niece or a nephew, sometimes kids don't quite get the full picture of the game. Maybe they throw a blanket over their head, and their feet are still sticking out, or they go behind a curtain that doesn't fully cover them.

They don't hide great. Even kids, perhaps if you played with younger siblings, you know some of your younger siblings don't know the best hiding spots. But the mind begins to think, "Well, if I can't see Dad, Dad can't see me." Sometimes we hide in silly places. Sometimes it's a little bit comical to think about.

But we grow up, don't we? We begin to not hide under blankets anymore that don't cover us fully or behind a curtain that then sticks out. Oftentimes, we're then tempted in the future to hide in other ways, to hide behind busyness, to hide behind excuses, to hide behind competence, to hide behind even religious activity, to hide behind other people.

And sometimes we even try to hide from God behind God things. We know how to look like we're seeking Him while our hearts are actually running far from Him. Tonight, Hosea brings a difficult word. I hope you know the particular kind of distress he's talking about tonight. Not because I want to trouble you, but because I love you.

Paul says something remarkable in 2 Corinthians 7. He wrote 1 Corinthians, and 2 Corinthians follows. In the middle of the letter he writes to the church, "I am so glad I wrote my first letter to you and grieved you." Not the thing that you're thinking of the Apostle Paul saying to a church that he describes with such love and affection that he has for them.

"I'm so glad I grieved you? I'm so glad I wounded you?" Why was Paul glad at the grief that he caused? I'd actually like to put before you that the same reason that the prophet Hosea is grieving, is mourning the people in the word that he has for them in Hosea chapter 5, because godly grief leads to repentance.

There is a result to the grief that can come. There is a godly distress that you might feel. There is a kind of wound that is actually a mercy. There's a kind of pain that God uses to bring His children home, and Hosea 5 is that type of word. It's like a scalpel in a surgeon's hand. It's intended to wound.

It's intended to cut. But it's not a blunt instrument like a sledgehammer hitting you in the chest. It's meant for surgical little cuts. God, here in Hosea chapter 5, is exposing Israel's false confidence. He is going to let them experience all of the consequences of their rebellion. He is going to take away all of the things that they have trusted in instead of Him, and it's all with a purpose.

The chapter ends with these words: "Until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face and in their distress earnestly seek me." This is the result that God desires. Here is His grace in pursuit even of His people. This is where Hosea is taking us this evening. That when our refuges fail, the places that we might try to hide, God teaches us to seek Him.

When our refuges fail, God teaches us to seek Him. Tonight, we're gonna examine this in three parts outlined for you in your bulletin. God sees what we try to hide, our pride testifies against us, and God removes our false refuge. Let's begin.

God Sees What We Try to Hide

Hosea begins by addressing everyone, if you look back at verse one there. "Hear this, O priests. Pay attention, O house of Israel. Give ear, O house of the king." The priests, the people, the king. Nobody gets to stand outside this indictment that Hosea is bringing before the people. The priests have failed in their calling. Pastor Scott talked about this a little bit last week. The nation has wandered.

The king and his government have led the people astray. And then God says, "For you have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor." Mizpah and Tabor were significant places in Israel's history, but not places that ought to have represented the life that God's people have, are now becoming a place of entrapment.

The leaders who were supposed to shepherd God's people have become a snare to God's people. And in verse two, we see the result of where this poor leadership has taken God's people. "The revolters have gone deep into slaughter, but I will discipline all of them." They have gone deep into rebellion. They aren't just dabbling in sin.

They aren't occasionally stumbling. They have gone deep. And then God says something that ought to make every sinner tremble. "I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me." Ephraim and Israel are like that little kid that I mentioned. The things they're trying to hide under, their feet are still sticking out the bottom of the blanket.

They're thinking about all these things that could be a refuge in their life. They're thinking that they've hidden themselves from the sight of God to be able to keep their sin secret, to be able to do the things that they want to do. And God says to them, "I know you. You are not hidden from me. You aren't as sneaky as you would like to believe."

You might be able to hide things from other people. You might be able to hide things even from your spouse or your children or the elders at your church, but you might even be able to hide things from yourself, but you cannot hide them from the God who knows all. A similar experience to playing hide and seek as a kid that we can use as an example. Did anybody ever take a cookie from the cookie jar when they weren't supposed to?

Now, my parents, when I was growing up, I don't think we ever actually had a physical cookie jar where cookies were kept, but the plate on the counter actually made it more tempting. There was no lid you had to take off, no risk of noise that you might make. Perhaps like me, you were a kid who was not always the best listener when you were told that the cookies were for after dinner.

Maybe you even had a moment like I did once with a cookie hidden behind my back as I heard my mother coming down the hallway. I thought my plan was pretty sneaky. Mom comes up and asks me the question. She knows me. She sees me. "Did you take a cookie?" "No." There's chocolate around my lips. There's crumbs on my shirt.

It was not a question, "Did you take a cookie?" Eventually, the guilt grew on my face. If a mother knows you, and if a mother can even see the guilt on your face when you've taken a cookie and you weren't supposed to, how much more is the Father who made all of us aware? "I know you, Ephraim. I know you, Israel. You are not hidden from my sight."

And then we learn what God sees. We continue in our passage, "For now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore. Israel is defiled." This is Hosea's familiar language of spiritual adultery. God's people have gone after other gods, and verse four explains the depths of this problem. "Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God, for the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they know not the Lord."

I think this is one of the saddest places in our passage. We read, "They know not the Lord." We'll get to another sad part in our passage in a moment, but they know not the Lord. Do you notice that? Their problem isn't merely that they've committed a few bad acts, that they took the cookie from the plate, that they were bad at hiding under the blanket.

Their problem is that their entire way of life has turned them away from God. Their deeds have become a barrier to returning. Sin is not merely something you do. Sin begins to shape what you love. It shapes what you want. It shapes what you want to see. It shapes what you even think you need, and eventually you become so accustomed to your sin that repentance itself feels unnatural and your heart becomes hard.

This is what's happening for Israel in the days that Hosea ministers. They become so hardened in their sins that repenting feels unnatural. They know not the Lord, and this is a tragedy. This is a sadness. These are God's covenant people. They know the things that He loves by reading His law. They have His temple, a place that is meant to represent His presence, that they might draw near.

They have sacrifices. They have promises, and yet they do not know Him. And dear Christian, this is where we need to slow down. We must not look back at Israel and mock their sin and just go, "Oh, how foolish they were. If only they were me, they wouldn't be tempted with all those same things. They wouldn't be tempted with all of this sin of worshiping Baal or prioritizing all of these other things, of neglecting worship.

That's their fault. They kinda brought this upon themselves. Nobody surely would describe me as a spiritual whore." This sin, this adultery that's describing the heart of the people—we're trying to hide. What are we trying to hide? What sin have we carefully kept in the dark? What compromise have we convicted ourselves that it just really isn't that serious?

What thought do we hope that nobody ever discovers? What desire are we feeding while pretending to fight it? What are we hiding? The reality is we cannot hide it from him. But there is something wonderfully hopeful about the fact that God sees us, because the God who sees your sin is also the God who calls you to repentance.

The point of Hosea's warning is not, "God knows you, so despair. Wallow." Consider even where we've been up until this point. The picture of Hosea and Gomer, this living picture of the prophet's broken marriage being restored. If that can happen, surely there must be hope for me. So God seeing is not for you to despair or look to hide better.

God knows you, so stop hiding. Like my mother finding me with chocolate around my lips and crumbs on my shirt, she saw the shame on my face. And that's where we come to our second point: our pride testifies against us.

Our Pride Testifies Against Us

We see in verse five that the pride of Israel testifies to his face. It's a striking statement.

Their pride becomes their own witness. They don't need God to manufacture evidence against them. Their own lives testify against them. The crumbs are on their shirts. They thought they were secure. The cookie was behind their back. Surely, he can't see it. They thought they could live however they wanted to live, but the shame is seen on their face.

They thought they could have their idols and their God, too, but their pride itself raises up as evidence against them. And then comes one of the saddest statements in this passage. "With their flocks and herds," this is verse six, "With their flocks and herds, they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him."

He's the good shepherd. He's the one who leaves the 99 to find the one. What do you mean, with their flocks and herds? They're preparing for sacrifice. They're preparing for worship. With their flocks and herds, they go and they seek the Lord, but they won't find him? Notice what they're doing. They're seeking the Lord.

They're bringing their flocks. They're bringing their herds. They're doing the religious things. They're bringing sacrifices, but they're not gonna find God. Why? Because they aren't really seeking God. They are seeking God on their own terms. They want the benefits of God without God himself. This is the case against them with their spiritual adultery.

They think, "Oh, okay. Let's just go kinda throw him a bone." All of these things are going bad. This illustration of a broken marriage. "I'll just take her out on a date night. It'll make everything better. All of the bad behavior that I've done, I'll take her out on a date night. It'll make everything great." They're seeking God on their own terms. They want the benefits of God without God himself. They want forgiveness without repentance. They want blessing without obedience. They want religious comfort without surrender. And this is the warning. It is possible to be religious and not know God.

You can come to church every Sunday. You can sing and know all of the hymns. You can have elaborate prayers with long vocabulary words that would win you a game of Scrabble. You can taste even the heavenly gifts. You can give your money. You can know your catechism backwards and forwards. You can own a dozen Bibles, and your heart can be far from the Lord.

The question isn't simply, are you doing religious things? The question is, are you seeking the Lord? Because these Israelites were doing religious things while running from God. They weren't looking to repent and turn from any of their sins. They were looking to maintain all of those other things they were doing, but let's go appease Yahweh as we might appease Baal.

Let's go and make an alliance with Assyria and offer sacrifices to the Assyrian gods in a way that maybe we'll just get all of their favor. Let's just get a little bit of everything. And then in verse seven, we read the consequence, "They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord, for they have borne alien children."

This is the result that this produces, alien children. What a horrifying expression for any parent. These are covenant people who are supposed to bear covenant children. They were supposed to raise their children in the knowledge and fear of the Lord. They were supposed to be a people belonging to God as His treasured possession, and yet their unfaithfulness has produced something alien, foreign, something that does not belong. Similar to in chapter one when we read, "Not my child."

There are few things more painful to imagine, and Hosea uses that language throughout his ministry to describe Israel's covenant unfaithfulness. They should be God's people. They should bear his name. There should be a family resemblance, but their lives testify otherwise. And here's the question Hosea puts before us: What does your life testify about what you really trust?

Our mouths can say one thing, our lives eventually tell the truth. Your calendar testifies, your pocketbook testifies, your use of time testifies, your relationships, your private life, your anxiety, your worship, all of these things show what you really believe. And this is why pride is so dangerous. Pride doesn't simply make us think highly of ourselves.

Pride, this pride that testifies against Israel, that pride convinces us that we really don't need God, that we can provide for ourselves, and eventually that pride testifies against us. It's showing their false repentance. It's showing that it's not genuine and from the heart. So then we see what God's going to do.

God Removes Our False Refuges

He's gonna remove their false refuge. Beginning in verse eight, the trumpet sounds, the alarm goes off. Gibeah, Ramah, Beth Aven—judgment is coming. And Hosea begins describing what happens when God's people refuse to return to Him. Look back with me at verse 11, "Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after filth."

His life was oriented towards filth. That phrase is striking, determined to go after filth. God is not describing somebody who is accidentally stumbling into sin. They're determined. They chose it. They pursued it. They planned their sin. It's premeditated. And then in verse 12, we read, "But I am like a moth to Ephraim and like dry rot to the house of Judah."

Sometimes God's judgment comes suddenly, but sometimes it comes slowly. A moth, dry rot, quiet, almost imperceptible. Something is eating away at what they thought was strong. You don't see it at first. The fabric begins to slowly weaken. The wood slowly becomes hollow, and then one day you discover that the thing that you thought was solid was already destroyed.

Sometimes that is how God's judgment works, and sometimes it's just how God's mercy works. He allows the thing you trust instead of Him to fail. For the dry rot to seep into the wood of that idol that you are resting on. For that moth to eat away at the clothing. He allows the thing you trust to fail.

He allows the false refuge to collapse. He lets you discover that what you thought would save you cannot save you. And then in verse 13, we read, "When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound." Let's pause there for a second. Ephraim sees his sickness in Judah, his wound. Something is wrong. Things are not the way they're supposed to be.

What should we do?

Then Ephraim went to Assyria. That is not the repentance that if we're reading we should be hoping for. They turned to Assyria. They finally realize that something is wrong. They have a sickness, they have a wound, and so they go looking for help. But where do they go? Whom do they seek? They go to Assyria.

They run to a foreign king. They run to a political power. They run to human strength. They run to something other than God. And God says, "But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound." We saw back in the first couple chapters of Hosea even that Assyria's bow would fail, that their bow would break, that their might.

Now, God has a plan in which he is going to use Assyria for his purposes, but then Assyria will fall. So Israel is basically running off going, "Things are going really bad. We need some sort of safety. We need some sort of protection. We're hurt. We're wounded. Let's pledge to this foreign king. We'll accept his customs.

We want his protection." And they're met with the reality through the prophet Hosea. Assyria can't save them. And this is where Hosea confronts our own hearts. When trouble comes, where do you run? Because trouble reveals that which you take refuge in. When you are afraid, where is it that you go? When you are lonely, where do you run?

When you are angry, where do you go? When you are ashamed, where do you seek to hide? When you are overwhelmed, what is the comfort? What do you believe that could cure you? When your plans collapse, where do you go? It sounds a little bit cheesy, but in some way we all have an Assyria, a place or a person or a thing that we go and we seek refuge in.

Now, you're probably not thinking about seeking refuge with a king of a foreign nation, but a place where when the storms of life come, you might hide or find comfort: money, control, a relationship, being esteemed, being praised, entertainment, food, alcohol, pornography, politics. Maybe it's simply the belief that if you could understand everything, organize everything, control everything, then it would all be okay.

Whatever your Assyria might be, eventually it is going to fail you, and God in His mercy allows it to fail because He loves you too much to let you remain satisfied with a false refuge. You may pray, "Lord, fix this situation," and God may answer by fixing something far deeper. You may pray, "Lord, take away my distress," and God may answer, "I am using your distress to bring you closer to me."

This is why Hosea is so severe. God isn't merely interested in making Israel comfortable. He wants Israel back. He doesn't wanna just take them out of the calamity. He wants to bring them home. This is where we can conclude that God wounds us until we seek His face. In verse 14, we read, "For I will be like a lion to Ephraim."

Notice the metaphor shifting there. Do you see that metaphor shifting from dry rot, from moth, things that slowly destroy, we're shifting to a lion. Lions do not destroy like dry rot. Nobody's ever described a lion like a moth. "For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah."

The imagery gets more severe. From a sickness and a wound, now a lion. A lion doesn't merely make you uncomfortable. A lion tears. It carries away. It rips, and there is no one who can rescue you from the prey of its mouth. God is saying, "You cannot escape me by running from me." But then comes verse 15, and here is the mercy hidden inside the judgment in a way that only the God of grace can do.

"I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me." There's one little word in that verse that I don't want you to miss, and that's "until." God says, "Until they seek my face." His judgment has a purpose. His discipline has a purpose.

The wound has a purpose. The distress has a purpose. It is intended to bring His people to repentance. God is not delighting in their destruction. He is pursuing them, and He pursues them until they finally say, "Lord, I need you." Notice what they are finally seeking. Not relief, prosperity, a better political situation, health, an easier life.

They seek His face. Not the benefits that He might give them, not the protections of Assyria, of a foreign king with a mighty army, until they seek His face. That's the difference. This is the part that often can be missed. The goal of repentance isn't merely getting out of trouble. That causes what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls a cheap grace.

If the goal is merely just to get out of trouble and to move on, that is not true repentance. The goal is restoration of a relationship. That's why it's so important that when we think about repentance, church, it is not just the turning away from sin, but the turning towards God. It is the seeking of His face.

What Hosea is addressing here in chapter five is a cheap repentance. What if we just turn from some of those things so that maybe things just get a little bit better? But not actually turning to the one who calls them. Notice that final phrase, "In their distress, earnestly seek me." In earnest repentance.

That is the type of repentance that we want, church. It's what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in his second letter, saying he's so glad that he caused them grief with his first letter. Because while worldly grief is only concerned with the consequences, godly grief is concerned with that turning to, not just a turning from, but a turning to.

That is the repentance that we are called to. Earnestly, not casually, not superficially. Not, "Lord, can you just make things easier?" But, "Lord, I want you." Do you hear that difference from merely turning from sin, but also turning to the God who seeks us? So let me ask you tonight, what are you seeking?

When you're afraid, what is it that you seek? When you're lonely or suffering or ashamed, where are the places that you go to take refuge? Because distress, difficult moments in life reveal what you look for as your comfort. And sometimes God loves us enough to take away that refuge that is slowly killing us.

And sometimes that process is like moth or dry rot, and sometimes it's like a lion or a young lion that rips, tears, and devours. He exposes our hiding places. He makes our pride testify against us. He allows our false gods to fail. He removes Assyria, and then he says, "Seek my face. Turn from these things and turn to me."

And Christian, there's one final thing we must remember. The God whose face Hosea tells us to seek has made his face known. We do not have to wonder what God is like. He has revealed what he is like, and he has come to us and drawn near in Jesus Christ, Emmanuel. He has come and entered into our distress in a way in which he is our high priest who perfectly sympathizes with all of our weakness, tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin.

He bore our guilt. He was wounded for our transgressions. He endured the judgment our sins deserve. He was forsaken so that sinners might be brought near. And to you, he says, "Come, all you who are weary and heavy laden. Take my yoke upon you, for my burden is light." Turn from the sin and turn to him. We don't run to Assyria.

We don't reach for other refuges. We seek the Lord. And if you are in distress tonight, perhaps the question isn't merely how do you get out of it, how things get simpler, peace restored, but how do I live a life of repentance in Christ? Because when our refuges fail, God is not abandoning us. Sometimes He is doing a merciful work of teaching us that He alone is our refuge, that He is our comfort in life and death.

As He pursues us, as a loving Father, He disciplines us. As He exposes the sin, sometimes like dry rot, sometimes like a lion, that we might seek His face and His grace that brings us home. When our refuges fail, may we seek His face. Let me pray for us.

Closing Prayer

Father, Lord, we do thank you for your grace and your mercy. Lord, help us to have that repentance unto life that is not merely just a turning from our sin, but a turning towards you, to seeking your face. Lord, by your means, by moth and dry rot, as a lion, reveal and expose our sins. And Lord, help us to see the comfort that while the king of Assyria cannot cure the wound, we have a king in Jesus who is the Great Physician, who can cure every wound, who can bind every wrong, who has said that He is preparing a place in which there is no more tears, death, or suffering.

Something that, Lord, living in a sinful world, we must admit and confess is hard sometimes to even fathom, of a place with no more tears, death, and suffering. Lord, be with us. Encourage us that you are the God who we are to take refuge in. Prepare us for this week coming ahead. In Christ's name, amen.