God's Law - Not In My Backyard
Hosea 8:1
"Put the ram’s horn to your mouth!
One like an eagle comes
against the house of the Lord,
because they transgress my covenant, and rebel against my law."
They rejected what is good. They established government without concern for the things of God. They built idols from their wealth. The bought the love of the world economic powers and warrior nations with their wealth. They paid for their lovers, they love the wages of a prostitute.
Hosea 8:17
"My God will reject them
because they have not listened to him; they will become wanderers among the nations."
"They rejected what was good" Hosea says. He's speaking about God's law. So they were guilty of misplaced priorities and forcing God's commandments out of their lives. And to make matters worse they took up the worship of Baal Peor, seducing the men of Israel to sexual sin and to sacrifices for their pagan fertility gods, and this “worship” often involved sexual acts. Midianite women seduced them with meat and sex offered to Baal Peor.
The pagan Midianites, who feared the success of Israel, tried to curse Israel but couldn't, so they tried instead to destroy them from within with temptation and sexual immorality.
Hosea 9:10
“When they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and became as vile as the thing they loved.”
Israel started out from Egypt like "grapes in the wilderness". But then, "they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead." (Psalm 106:28)
God had taken out from slavery and gave them the promises from heaven, even while they were wondering through the wilderness l. He gave them his law and established with them his covenants. And he promised to make of them a great nation. And they come along these wicked pagans at Peor and next thing you know they're offering to the lifeless idols and eating at the altars, and participating in their sexuality. The apostle Paul refers to that incident in 1 Corinthians 10:8. It seems many new Christian communities were falling into these temptations. Turns out no temptation has ever overtaken anyone except what is common to all mankind.
Many things have changed since Israel sinned at Baal Peor, but the basic temptations have not. Immoral sexuality, and all manner of sexual temptations is forever present in our modern societies, and the idols of wealth, pleasures, social media statuses, and living “the good life”, are still consuming the faithfulness of many. For all our scholarship and scientific advancements, all these pagan things still creep into every public and private sector of our society.
Why?
Because it is "common to all mankind". And not even God could prevent or overcome this human condition in his people. His law merely pointed out the conditions and revealed the need to repent. His love and grace only covered the human condition. His forgiveness excused it. His mercy offered restoration from it. His Son died because of it. And Christ builds his kingdom to come where that condition will no longer exist.
Extravagant love in the future.
But for now?
Even today, Christians must guard against the sin of Baal Peor. It's everywhere in our western culture. You can't escape it. The Israelites couldn't. They experienced temptations from pagan women, and they gave into it. They were whoring with Moabite women who were following Midianite sexuality traditions. And likewise today sexual immorality creeps into the camps of all sorts of Christian societies. And every nation falls prey to it. It's truly common among all mankind.
I've often wondered why The Lord puts so much emphasis upon that particular sin situation. But when you really take a close look at any instances in the Bible, or even extra biblical texts, where mankind has fallen off into the worship of false gods and idols and immoral corrupt society...somewhere in that fall is always a propensity for getting involved in sexual immorality. It truly is common among all mankind.
And at the root of this condition is first the rejection of God's law.
"They transgress my covenant, and rebel against my law."
First you have to turn aside. First you have to get off track. First you have to make yourself blind to the truth. First you have to limit access to that truth. First you have to cover up the law and if you can't get it removed completely from the culture, then you find yourself reworking the meaning of what's being taught in the law. You call it "pushing your religion on us". You say you have to have a separation of church and state. You take it to court and you make laws in the halls of justice to protect the culture from God's law. You limit access to it, just hide it over there in that "religious" space.
You can have your sexual immorality everywhere, parading it around on the public thoroughfares. You can worship it everywhere, even in the Christian churches (but not in Islamic centers, there you can still limit the worship of sex).
You can teach it in the public schools. You can make your offerings to it in your prideful churches. You can fill up the nonstop media images that your society is exposed to with it. But God forbid you post God's law in public.