"IT IS TIME" (Pastor Tom Henry) ~ 10/14/25

“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD.” (Hosea 10:12)

Hosea was the first of the writing prophets. He was sent to warn Israel, especially the Northern Kingdom, of coming judgement. He used a variety of analogies and metaphors to expose the sin of the nation and call them to repentance. He was the Old Testament master of the parable. He went so far as to “take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms:” (Ch. 1:2), making of his own household a living parable. This was meant to shock this people and cause them to see the heinousness of their sin. They had “played the harlot.” (Ch. 4:15) They had trimmed their ways to seek many strange lovers. They had been unfaithful to their marriage vows and broken the covenant. (Vs. 4) Whether their sin or ours, it is intolerable in God’s sight - as intolerable as unfaithfulness in marriage.

Hosea’s children were given names to signify the judgement that Israel’s unfaithfulness, if not corrected, would bring. His firstborn son was called Jezreel, meaning, “I will scatter.” If they continued in their spiritual harlotry, God would scatter them from the land that He gave them into strange counties. Gomer next bore him a daughter, and God said call her name “Loruhamah, for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel.” The third child, another son, was, at God’s direction named Loammi, meaning “not My people,” signifying that the Lord would not only scatter, but disown them.

When Hosea speaks of Israel’s harlotry, he has reference to their idolatry. This began with Jeroboam’s calf-worship at Bethel and spread from there. Hosea therefore refers to Bethel, which means “house of God,” as Bethaven, “house of vanity.” Idolatry is a house of nothingness, for an idol, as the Apostle Paul noted, is nothing at all.

Hosea had before likened their idolatrous life to “sowing the wind.” He warned that the result would be “to reap the whirlwind” - a tempestuous, tornadic wind that would scatter them to the ends of the earth. The inexorable law of sowing and reaping assures that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (Gal. 6:7)

The prophet here returns to the use of agricultural analogy to instruct the people what needs to happen, and when it needs to happen. “It is time to seek the Lord.” It is time to forsake your false gods and return to the Lord. It is time to quit the insanity, to ditch the false lovers, and seek to be reconciled to Jehovah, your true Husband.

Hosea tells how this is done. To begin, stop sowing wind, stop sowing to the flesh, stop plowing wickedness. Then instead, “Sow to yourselves in righteousness.” Note, the reaping will be “mercy,” and the harvest will begin immediately. This sowing requires soil preparation: “Break up your fallow ground.” Fallow ground is that which had been turned under, but the clods haven’t been broken up. It lies unattended allowing natural growth of weeds, briars, etc. to return. Many seem to start out well, but then they neglect their “field” and drift back to the world, to their old “gods.” It is time to get back to righteous sowing and breaking up that neglected ground. In Jesus’ Parable of the Sower (Matt. 13) the “good ground” that receives the seed is literally, “prepared ground.”

When is it time to seek the Lord? When you realize that your life is not bearing fruit unto God, it is time. When you are aware that your “fields” are fallow, the weeds, briars, and thorns of sin are taking over your life, it is time to break up that fallow ground, and sow righteousness, and begin to reap mercy. Remember, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Therefore, let us “sow in righteousness,” and “reap in mercy.” Let us “sow to the Spirit,” and “reap life everlasting.” (Gal. 6:8)