Title: FROM THE ASH HEAP OF HISTORY

Focus: From the ash heap of history God leads us to a renewed creation through Jesus Christ, who is victorious over sin and death.

Function: To encourage the people to take note of God’s warnings and to respond to God’s call to repent and live godly lives.

Text: Hosea 13:1-14:9 (background text: II Peter 3)

 

            Nothing seems to last in life. I sometimes think that if my grandfather should rise from the dead today, he would not recognize the landscape and region he grew up in. Where once was his farmland are now greenhouses; where once there were numerous ditches and small, winding roads, there are now a few highways and asphalted byways. Everything that was so familiar to him for about 90 years has changed today. Nothing seems to last.

            It is the same with nations and kingdoms. Kingdoms come and kingdoms go, so goes the saying. The Caesars of Rome are no more; Napoleon’s dream of a world empire is gone; Hitler’s vision of a pure, Aryan race is blown to smytherenes. Tyrants come and go. Empires rise and fall. History seems to be one vast ash heap.

            The ash heap of history is fed by the cycle of life and death—where death is always (so it seems) inevitable. The other day I was watching a program about metal and steel—how it is produced, how it is used and maintained in creation, and how it always ends up in corrosion and its original state of ore. Even steel ends up on the ash heap of time.

            So it is also with life: we are born; we live; we die. Dust we are, to dust we turn.  Such is the cycle of life. Human beings, created things, and countries and nations all end up on the ash heap of history. It’s kind of depressing.

            But here is the good news: from the ash heap of history, God leads us to a renewed creation through Jesus Christ, who is victorious over sin and death. Hosea’s prophecies—though hard to swallow, come to us with good news that is supported by all the Scriptures. Today, God’s Word encourages us to take note of God’s warnings and to respond to God’s call to repent and live godly lives.

            The last two chapters of Hosea’s prophecy are held in contrast by its tone: chapter 13 voices demise and destruction; chapter 14, however, healing and wholeness. Chapter 13 reveals God’s wrath; chapter 14 exposes God’s heart of love and restoration.

            Let’s begin with chapter 13 and consider its chilling message—a message that in essence says: the kingdom of Israel is destined for the ash heap of history. Inspired by God’s Spirit Hosea crafts his message in literal terms and with a number of images. The images stir our imagination and reach our senses and inform our hearts; the literal terms address our brains.

Consider, for example, God’s voice in verses 9-11: “You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. Where is your king, that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princess’? So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away.” This is plain language: God tells the Israelites that their kings have failed to protect them from idolatry and finding security in God Himself. Exile is coming; Assyria and Egypt will overtake the Israelites. The kingdom of Israel is destined for the ash heap of history.  That’s plain language.

Now note how God also speaks to his people using images or pictures. The first image comes to us in vs. 3 “Therefore (the Israelites) will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window.”

This image of mist or dew or chaff or smoke—comes to us in the context of an accusation. God charges Israel with Baal worship. And therefore Israel has died, is dying, and is destined for the ash heap of history.

The second image is found in verses 7 and 8. It comes to us in the context of God’s punishment upon Israel’s idolatry: “So I will come upon them like a lion, like a leopard I will lurk by the path. Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open. Like a lion I will devour them; a wild animal will tear them apart.” This image of wild animals reveals the depth of God’s anger toward Israel. He values his covenant relationship, and Israel’s idolatry and pride have cut deep into God’s heart. He is a “jealous” God who does not take kindly the unfaithfulness of his people.

The third image comes to us in the context of Israel’s guilt and sins. Listen (vs. 12-13) “the guilt of Ephraim is stored up, his sins are kept on record. Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom; when the time arrives, he does not come to the opening of the womb.”  This image, too, smacks of death. For it points to stillbirth—another picture of Israel being destined for the ash heap of history.

Vs. 15 presents us with another image; God speaks of an “east wind blowing in from the desert.” That wind leads to dry wells, drought and starvation.

So then, in plain language as well as in picture language God makes it clear that the kingdom of Israel will be no more.

            Oh, it’s a harsh message--loaded with divine anger toward the unfaithful Israelites. And couched in this 13th chapter you find some familiar words. Those words are familiar because the apostle Paul refers to them in the context of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. In Paul’s letter those words have a positive, victorious tone.

But in Hosea’s prophecy they are words of doom. For whereas God reveals a hint of redeeming love saying “I will ransom (my people) from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death,” God also exposes the depth of his justice and wrath, commanding the power of death to do its work: “Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?” In other words: Go to it: unleash your power upon Israel and cast them upon the ash heap of history.

            Thankfully, these are not God’s last words to his people. In the closing chapter of Hosea, God comes to us with words of wellness and wholeness, with words of comfort and pleading love.

            For example, in vs. 5 God refers to himself as dew—refreshing, reviving his people again should they repent and turn to him: “I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily.” In vs. 7 God projects himself as shade or shelter for his people, saying “Men will dwell again in (my) shade.” God’s people will flourish and live again. Out of the ash heap God will bring life and vitality.

There is hope for his unfaithful people—if they repent and turn to him again! God is the source of life and fruitfulness and wholeness. That’s why God reveals himself one more time, now with the picture of a tree. Listen (vs. 8b) “I am like a green pine tree; your fruitfulness comes from me.”

You see? Chapter 14 counteracts chapter 13. Wrath and doom in chapter 13; mercy and restoration in chapter 14. We see these two strands of God’s character all throughout the scriptures, and especially in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s why I say: from the ash heap of history, God leads us to a renewed creation through Jesus Christ, who is victorious over sin and death

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            When you keep in mind the grand story of God: creation-fall-deliverance-and restored creation, you realize that Jesus is the key to life over death; he is the key to turn the ash heap of history into a restored creation.

 

Consider:

His incarnation: he took on our human nature, our flesh.

 

His death: he took our place and died, thus paying the wages of sin.

 

His resurrection: God raised him from the dead. Death had no power over Jesus; death lost its grip on the ash heap of history. A new era has come. The age of salvation has arrived.

All who turn to Christ in faith and repent from their sins, and all who seek to further the rule or kingdom of God are now part of the new creation (II Cor. 5). And we are looking forward to live with God in our midst, in wholeness, and wellness, in shalom. This is what the gospel teaches us. And this is what we are longing for: a renewed heaven and earth.

                        That’s why our liturgy this afternoon included that scripture passage from II Peter 3. There will come a day when God justice will be fully revealed. There will come a day when God’s wrath will be unleashed upon all his enemies, upon all who rebelled against him, and against his Son, the Lord Jesus.

            What are we to do in light of Hosea’s prophecy? What does Scripture tell us today as we look forward to that restored creation? What must we do today as we are still part of that cycle that leads to the ash heap of history?

 

 

 

Listen: (II Peter 3:11ff) “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God speed its coming…make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with (God)”

 

Thank God for glorious good news!

 

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.