As I read this passage, verses 7–8 jump out at me.
Hosea writes,
The days of punishment are coming, the days of reckoning are at hand. Let Israel know this.
Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac.
The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, yet snares await him on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his God. (Hosea 9:7–8)
In Hosea’s time, evil was so rampant that the prophets and godly men were considered fools and maniacs.
As a result, all their warnings and admonitions to the people went largely ignored. Not only that, but people would openly attack God’s messengers in order to shut them up.
But because of this, the days of reckoning were soon to come. Judgment was close at hand.
Hosea compared his time to the days of Gibeah, the site of one of the most sordid stories in Israel’s history.
So sordid were the events, that they compared in many ways to the corruption found in Sodom and Gomorrah.
And so Hosea warned the people, “If you keep ignoring the words of God, you will become like Gibeah. You will become like Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Unfortunately, the people didn’t listen, and eventually judgment did come.
One wonders what God thinks of our world today. Many of the things Hosea told the people back then, you could say about our own culture today.
People preaching God’s word faithfully are often considered fools and maniacs. And while fortunately it’s rare to see them physically attacked, they are attacked on other levels.
They’re often called bigoted and intolerant, and their names are dragged through the mud.
And all the while, you see our values gradually sinking down to the levels of Sodom and Gomorrah itself.
God’s patience will not last forever, and if we don’t turn, judgment will come, just as it did to Gibeah, Sodom and Gomorrah, to Israel, and to Judah.
That’s what happens when we refuse to listen to God.
And like I mentioned a couple blogs before, if we the priests of God are ignoring his words, what hope does our culture have?
As God’s priests, let us not ignore his words, but listen to them.
Let us not take on the values of this world, but rather let God work in us and through us to transform them.
Moment to Moment (Bible blog) 