Israel shall know it.
The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad
for the multitude of thine iniquity and the great hatred.
This is a significant verse right here
because it's talking about the condition
of the spiritual leadership.
Now he's saying the prophet is a fool
and the spiritual man is mad, what does that mean?
Well it's not referring to the fact
that all the prophets are fools
because Hosea's a prophet and he's not a fool.
Hosea's spiritual and he's not mad.
And mad doesn't mean like he's angry, it means he's crazy.
He's alluding to the fact that the spiritual leadership
of that day, they're crazy, they're fools.
Why, because of the multitude of the iniquity,
the idolatrous practices, serving Baal, et cetera,
but then it says right there, and the great hatred.
Now what is it referring to when it says
that they have great hatred?
Well keep in mind that he's comparing Israel
to a reprobate nation.
And what is a characteristic of an individual reprobate
is that they're haters of God.
Now why do they hate God?
Well they hate God because they hate his commandments.
They rejected God.
So this isn't some Calvinistic teaching
that says well God just hated them from the beginning.
That God hated Israel from the beginning.
No, they did something to merit that hatred.
Okay, now the Bible says in Psalm 81 verse 10,
I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out
of the land of Egypt.
Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.
But my people would not harken to my voice
and Israel would none of me, so I gave them up
to their own hearts lusts.
And they walked in their own counsels.
Now does that sound familiar to you?
What he's saying to Israel, he says,
I'm giving them up to their own hearts lusts.
Well that sounds like Romans 124.
Wherefore God gave them up unto uncleanness
through the lusts of their own hearts.
You see, the reprobate nation has the same characteristics
as an individual reprobate.
And what is it?
Is that when they reject God, it's because they hate God.
Now notice, this verse in Hosea comes before
where God says I hate you.
You know, draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh unto you.
Often God's action is based upon your action.
And the same thing goes with becoming a reprobate.
God isn't, oh he's just, I'm just gonna make this
a reprobate nation.
No, it's because they hate God.
It says in verse 13 of Psalm 81,
oh that my people had hearkened unto me
and Israel had walked in my ways,
I should soon have subdued their enemies
and turned my hand against their adversaries.
The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves
unto him, but their time should have endured forever.
He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat
and with honey out of the rock
should I have satisfied thee.
So even then it says that they're haters of the Lord.
This is the characteristic of the nation in its entirety.