Hosea 10:12-13
"Sow righteousness for yourselves
and reap faithful love; break up your unplowed ground. It is time to seek the Lord until he comes and sends righteousness on you like the rain. You have plowed wickedness and reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way."
They had planted wickedness, and likewise so have we. It seems no matter what good was done, the weeds of orgiastic idol worship was always present in the furrows of their lands. It's ironic because surely all good things come from heaven above, and yet Israel continues to make altars for the fertility gods. And again so do we. And of course all such attempts to guarantee the crop yields and increase productivity will ultimately turn back on them and us. Israel still has not learned the lessons of God’s mercy, compassion, and justice shown to them throughout their history, and we likewise have not learned from them. The degeneracy of Israel in Hosea's age is our own in this time. And if history teaches us anything, judgement follows.
At the heart of this corruption is fake news, deep fake, cheap fake...cheap grace. They cultivated empty words and made covenants they never intended to keep. And so injustice springs up among them like poisonous weeds in a farmer’s field. These weeds would get gathered up together with the wheat and if they didn't carefully sift out the hemlock it would poison the whole batch.
Poison hemlock not only takes over farm fields, it spreads into everything; roadsides, ditches, pastures, and meadows, it can also find its way into your home landscapes. It's native to North Africa and Europe but had been welcomed into North America as an ornamental garden plant. It's highly toxic to humans and animals and has escaped the landscape gardens ultimately invading the wild areas throughout North America.
Every part of that plant is toxic, and just slightly brushing up against it can cause injury. And to make matters worse it resembles many nontoxic perennial plants. It sort of resembles Yarrow, Ragweed and Sambucus. And it's no easy task getting rid of it. Completely eradicating a severe poison hemlock infestation takes persistence and probably several growing seasons.
And so the prophet Hosea says "break up the ground", they've got to root it out. Meanwhile, Jesus says to let the weeds sown by the enemy to continue to grow among the wheat, and at the threshing floor God will sort it out.
The fact of the matter is, weeds happen. You can try to cultivate them out. You can chemically treat them into submission to limit the spread. Yet, adjacent to the fields are wild areas where the poisonous weeds continue to spread. And their seeds will continue to invade and take advantage of the freshly cultivated fields. One plant can produce 10's of thousands of seeds. And it will quickly populate disturbed areas such as cleared woodlands. It grows along roadsides, farm fields, ditches, marshes, and meadows. And so the threat exists and cannot be completely eliminated, and it shouldn't be ignored.
This is life...the wicked exist. People are not mostly good by nature. The threat is persistent. "They have spoken words — Mere empty words; swearing falsely in making a covenant" (Hosea 10:4). So much of the church is a hollow vine not producing fruit, they've got divided hearts, filled with flattery they lie, building false altars to cheap fake gods, and cultivating poisonous weeds. And the hemlock ultimately becomes their own judgment because they ignored it in the furrows.
The Bible tells us to obstain from all sin and iniquities. And yet the culture is wild and unkempt. The weeds have taken over all the natural areas. The farmers, gardeners, and vine dressers have preached cheap fakes, and built false altars to foreign gods. Instead of breaking up the hard compacted soil so that the good seed can take profitable fruitful root, they sow cheap grace, they promote becoming covenant-breakers. They make oaths of vanity and bring about national ruin. Their mouths are singing the songs of Zion, but their hearts are somewhere else. Their cheap fake crime sprouts like a noxious weed.
If it's not rooted out? It's not all doom and gloom.
Yes the poisonous weed becomes your judgment, but there remains hope.
Jesus Christ took that judgment upon himself. He breaks up the ground, he prepares the heart to receive him. He manages your fields. He's the vine dresser. He prunes and cultivates a new nature within His vineyard. And for those in Him, those who love God and committ themselves to Him without reservation, there is still hope. Hope until that last child of God converts.
All humanity waits for that last child to convert. Only God knows who that last lost one is, but the day is coming and God already knows who he or she is. But ultimately all this time between Christ's resurrection and now has been a gathering, a sorting, a sifting. There is a last child yet to come, and when that happens, the new creation. Until then we cultivate the fields and make disciples. We continue to produce fruit for his kingdom, and we continue to exhort the cheap fakes poisoning the harvest.