Hosea 5: When God Is Your Enemy

"Don't make me angry.  You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."  A quote from Hosea?  No.  Actually those words are David/Bruce Banner's, before he turns into the rampaging Incredible Hulk.  However, the same sentiment applies to Hosea 5.

If you think the Hulk is fearsome, you should consider what it is like when we make God our enemy!  Israel and Judah have done just that by "playing the whore" (vs. 3).  Because of their defilement, separation and distance exists between God and His people: "Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God.  For the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they do not know the Lord" (vs. 4).  Their sin has cut them off from God, and even when they seek Him to worship Him, He will refuse to be found by them.  "With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him; he has withdrawn from them" (vs. 6).

But not only is God distancing Himself from the people; now He will actively be their enemy.  We are accustomed to thinking of God as our deliverer, our protector, our helper.  But what if we set ourselves against God?  We would find out what it is like to have God against us!  All the things that the people fear and dread from the nations around them will now come upon them from their God:

• "On them I will pour out my wrath like water" (vs. 10).

• "Therefore I am like maggots to Ephraim, and like rottenness to the house of Judah" (vs. 12).

• "For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah.  I myself will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue" (vs. 14).

It is a brutal thing to turn against the Lord and make Him your enemy.  There would be no hope at all in this chapter were it not for the little word "unless."  These conditions of enmity between God and His people are not permanent.  Hosea 5 concludes in verse 15: "I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.  In their distress they will beg my favor."