Dead People Bring Death

Some have a serious problem with God's actions and judgment in the Old Testament. The reason is that they do not bother to read it closely enough. Consider what Hosea says about the Tribe of Ephraim (a synonym for the Northern Kingdom in many cases) at the peak of her idolatry and immoral behavior. 

Hosea 13:1–2 (ESV) When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israel, but he incurred guilt through Baal and died. 2 And now they sin more and more, and make for themselves metal images, idols skillfully made of their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of them, “Those who offer human sacrifice kiss calves!”

They were in the human-killing business. Should God let it continue? Should God not put a stop to it? Honest engagement with the Bible demands an understanding of the evil humans are capable of before we put God on trial for how He chooses to handle it. 

Now look at verse one. For there we find the root of the evil. 

Hosea 13:1 (ESV) he was exalted in Israel, but he incurred guilt through Baal and died.

Ephraim was blessed by God, took it for granted, sought the idols of nations around her, worshipped the false fertility god Baal, and what? DIED.

Dead nations bring death. And where do they concentrate their efforts? Upon the children. The nation of Israel was so utterly corrupted by the sick practices of other nations, so consumed with the quest for more and more gain, that they sacrificed their children and thought it pleased the golden calves they fashioned. 

In other words, they were spiritually dead and beyond cure. Dead people bring death to more people. 

So God brings an end to them in MERCY for others. 

Hosea 13:3 (ESV) Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes early away, like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor or like smoke from a window.

Then the Lord reminds the nation once again that everything they became and had came from Him.

Hosea 13:4–6 (ESV) But I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior. 5 It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought; 6 but when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me.

Over and over again in Hosea, the message is clear: forgetting what God has done and who He is paves the way to objectionable, dehumanizing idolatry. God's judgment is mercy for those yet to be born.

Hosea 13:8–9 (ESV) I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs; I will tear open their breast, and there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild beast would rip them open. 9 He destroys you, O Israel, for you are against me, against your helper.

The Lord describes Ephraim as a child who refused to be born.

Hosea 13:12–13 (ESV) The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is kept in store. 13 The pangs of childbirth come for him, but he is an unwise son, for at the right time he does not present himself at the opening of the womb.

A hint is found in this text of the words Jesus will share with the learned scholar Nicodemus, "Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). Apart from a supernatural work of conversion, mankind naturally deteriorates and dies, destroying others along the way. 

So, before we have a problem with God's judgment, we should have a bigger problem with human sin and seek the grace of God for the solution found in the judgment borne at the cross by His Son.