What did I do to deserve This?

Read Hosea 8.

Sound the alarm!  Blow the trumpet!  With those words, the LORD announced the certainty of the coming judgment upon Israel and Judah.  What did they do to deserve this punishment?

1. They violated the commitment. (v.1b, 12)
After the Exodus from slavery in Egypt and before the Jews entered the land, God laid out His expectations of their national behavior.  In Deuteronomy 28, there were to be blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience to God's law.  Moses said, "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil" (Deuteronomy 29:15).  In Hosea's day, God's word no longer had any influence in their lives. They brought this judgment on themselves.

2. They made leadership decisions without consulting the LORD. (v.4a)
Of the nineteen kings in the northern kingdom of Israel, not one of them was a godly man.  In Judah, only eight of the twenty kings honored God and His word.

3. They worshiped made up gods. (v.4b-6, 11)
With their mouths they said to the LORD of heaven, "My God."  But, their money and their hearts were given to objects they crafted with their own hands.

4. They were independent and stubborn. (v.9-10)
God compared them to a wild donkey, wandering alone.  Yet, for protection they hired mercenary allies.  The cost of their actions bankrupted them both spiritually and financially.

5. They put they put their hope in material possessions. (v.14)
Israel built palaces as outward signs of prosperity.  Judah constructed fortified cities thinking they would provide protection.

As a result of their own sinful choices, there is no good news here.  "For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." (v.7)  Instead of planting their lives in the good soil of godliness that would produce good results, they lived life wildly wasting what God had given them.  "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.  For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." (Galatians 6:7-8)