It is remarkable that when Hosea married his wife Gomer he knew she was going to be unfaithful to him. It is even more remarkable that God set his love upon his chosen people Israel, when God knew in advance all the ways in which they were going to be unfaithful to him. They would worship false gods, making idols for themselves like the golden calf and also bowing down to the Baals and the Asherah, the fertility gods of the surrounding pagan nations. Instead of putting their trust in God, Israel would also form political alliances with other nations. They would reject God’s laws and desecrate his Temple and pollute his Sabbaths.
Yet God kept on loving the Israelites. For almost a thousand years since Moses, God had kept on loving his chosen people. From time to time, God would call his people back to himself through good kings, and through the priests, and through his messengers, prophets like Elijah and Elisha and now Hosea. In Hosea chapter 7, God is still calling his people to repent and return to him and he uses four memorable pictures to illustrate the sins of Israel. These pictures can act as warnings for Christians as they show us the kinds of sins believers can fall into even today
Israel the half-baked loaf – the problem of partial holiness.
The Northern Kingdom of Israel is also called Ephraim,
Ephraim is a flat loaf not turned over.
When you are cooking bread in a pan rather than in the oven if you don’t turn it over half way through it ends up only half cooked – the perennial problem Mary Berry would call the “soggy bottom”. Israel is as worthless as a half-baked cake.
9 Foreigners sap his strength, but he does not realise it.
There were two problems – worshipping foreign gods and also making alliances with pagan nations. Both of these were draining the life out of Israel as they were relying on other nations instead of the one true God. One commentator wrote, “how better to describe a half-fed people, a half-cultured society, a half-lived religion, a half-hearted policy, than as a half-baked loaf – inedible because it is burnt on the one side and raw on the other?” God demands wholehearted obedience. His chosen people should belong to him alone, set apart for him. God commanded this time and time again in the law of Moses.
Leviticus 11 44 I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground. 45 I am the LORD, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.
In his farewell speech Moses had warned the Israelites of the dangers of compromise and set a stark choice before them.
Deuteronomy 30 15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
Moses had warned Israel. The command is clear, to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength and all our mind. And we have seen this call to stand out from the crowd and to be different repeated many times in the New Testament. To be set apart, holy as God is holy.
1 Peter 2 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
People should see the difference Jesus makes in our actions and in our speech, in our lifestyle and in our love. In Hosea’s time Israel was led astray by fertility idols. Today too many Christians are distracted by the all the false gods of Money and Entertainment and Celebrity and the lure of a nice comfortable easy life. How tempting it can be to become a little bit holy, but not too holy. But if that is the case then we become as unpalatable to God as a half burned half raw half-baked loaf. The problem of partial holiness. Then there is a second picture.
Grey hairs here and there – the problem of spiritual decline
Hosea 7:9 …His hair is sprinkled with grey, but he does not notice.
New Living Translation Their hair is gray, but they don’t realize they’re old and weak.
Good News Translation their days are numbered but they don’t even know it.
If the Israelites had turned away from God suddenly and dramatically, they would probably have realised the mess they were in. But here is the danger with unfaithfulness and adultery. It takes something which is pure and then little by little pollutes and destroys it. That which was pure is spoiled – it is adulterated. This is what had happened to Israel. One act of worshipping false gods, then another, then a political alliance, turned into temple prostitution. The Israelites’ faith in the living God was polluted so slowly and gradually that they didn’t even notice. Their hairs turned metaphorically grey as their vitality was sapped away.
And that is the way some Christians drift away from God. Not in one big obvious sin. Not in one dramatic fall. But a slow and imperceptible decline. A little stumble here, letting standards slip there. Skipping one worship service, then another one the next month, then being too busy for prayer meeting or home group or Christian service. Slow decline turns into apathy.
I think this is a picture of how some Christians have drifted through the Covid lockdowns and are now struggling to return to church and to fellowship. It is too easy to become spiritually flabby without even noticing.
Churches can fall into the same trap. I think this is also a picture of how some corners of the church have been declining for decades. One little compromise here, disregard clear Bible teaching on certain issues there, accommodating themselves to the views of the world around. The slippery slope of spiritual decline – grey hairs here and there, and they don’t even know it.
Revelation 3:1 ‘To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.
A church which rests on its laurels, which becomes complacent about holiness and prayer and evangelism, which doesn’t care about biblical truth and sound doctrine, can so easily follow Israel into spiritual decline.
There is hope for us all, however few or however many grey hairs we may have. We can always return to God. But there is a solemn warning for us all from the story of Israel.
10 Israel’s arrogance testifies against him, but despite all this
he does not return to the LORD his God or search for him.
Israel had become so comfortable in their spiritual adultery that the whole nation had passed the point of no return. Judgment would be coming. Then there is a third vivid picture in Hosea 7.
Israel the silly pigeon – the problem of wavering loyalties
11 ‘Ephraim is like a dove, easily deceived and senseless—
now calling to Egypt, now turning to Assyria.
12 When they go, I will throw my net over them; I will pull them down like the birds in the sky. When I hear them flocking together, I will catch them.
“Silly, witless doves,” the New Living Translation puts it. “Bird-brained, mindless, clueless” the Message says.
God was their help and strength. It was God who had brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and through the Red Sea safely on dry land. It was God who had given them the victory as they took possession of the Promised Land. Egypt could never save Israel. Assyria could never save Israel. Only the Almighty God would be able to rescue them from their enemies. But instead the Israelites kept wavering from one political alliance to another. God would be their strength and refuge, their ever-present help in times of trouble. But instead of putting their trust in God, Israel were just flitting around.
Here is a challenge for Christians. If we face problems, when do we turn to God. First? Or last? Or not at all? When we have problems with our health, or with neighbours or in our family, money problems, fears about the future. Do we turn to God and depend on God? Too often Christians struggle with problems by themselves, or turn here there and everywhere for solutions or for help, instead of looking to God for help. Israel were turning to other nations instead of to God, silly pigeon!
Partial holiness, spiritual decline, wavering loyalties. These problems have inevitable consequences, expressed in the fourth picture.
Israel the faulty bow –
Hosea 7 16 They do not turn to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword because of their insolent words.
For this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.
Because they refused to put their trust in God, his chosen people of Israel had become as unreliable and useless and ineffective as a crooked bow which always missed the target. When it came to fulfilling God’s purposes and bringing glory to God, Israel were not a help but a hindrance. More useless than a faulty bow which doesn’t only miss its target but risks injuring other people or even recoiling and killing the user and causing more damage than the enemy. God’s people had strayed from him and rebelled against him. It wasn’t just that they were missing out on the blessings God longed to pour down on them. Israel were no longer able to fulfil God’s purposes for them. They could not fulfil their destiny as a holy nation and a royal priesthood. So God’s honour was insulted. His glory was tarnished in the eyes of the world. God’s chosen people had become a half-baked loaf, with grey hairs but they didn’t know it, a silly pigeon and a crooked bow. Now they were worse than useless to God.
Like any church which sees discipleship and holiness and evangelism as optional extras.
Like any Christians who have lost their way and become spiritually weak and powerless.
Like any believers whose enthusiasm and commitment flit from one thing to another but never to the things of God.
All these are no longer a strength but instead have become a liability in God’s continuing mission to redeem the world. They are missing the target. Their stories are warnings to Christians of sins to avoid. Paul wrote this to the Corinthians about the sins the Israelites fell into in the Old Testament.
1 Corinthians 10:11-12 These are all warning markers — DANGER! — in our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence. (Message)

The half-baked loaf – grey hairs here and there – the silly pigeon – the crooked bow. Let us not become complacent or make the mistake of saying, “we would never do that.”