Year 3, Day 212: Hosea 13-14

Religion of Our Own Making

I just finished reading yet another article online about “spiritual leaders who want to attract _____ generation need to listen to this.”  Here was the point of the article.  Such-and-such a generation needs to see Jesus in this way and that way.  I’m sure you’ve read that kind of article.  Yet another religious writer saying that the key to attracting people is to show them Jesus how they want to see Jesus.  Apparently it is up to us to sell Jesus according to how they define “genuine.”

To be truthful, I think reading through the Old Testament prophets I’ve come to a conclusion.  The world isn’t going to be saved by showing them the Jesus they want to see.  People are saved by showing them the Jesus that they need to see.  That sounds simple, but I think it is true.

People are saying, “I don’t find Jesus when I go to church.”  Cynically, I can’t help but ask, “Is it really Jesus you are trying to find?”  After all, Jesus promises to be wherever two or three of His people are together.  So to say you don’t see Jesus in a church is basically saying that you don’t think two or three of Jesus’ people are in that place.  That’s a pretty arrogant comment to make. 

No, I don’t think the problem is a problem of not showing people Jesus in the way that they want to see Him.  I think the problem is that people aren’t looking for the real Jesus.  They want to find a Jesus in their own making so they can follow that Jesus in a way of their own making.

I think if we look into Hosea 13, we see this dynamic loud and clear.  The Hebrew people made their religion in their own image.  They started with something related to God.  They threw in a little Canaanite child sacrifice and added some Assyrian animal worship.  They tossed in a bit of other stuff and found the “god” they wanted to worship.  They made their religion in their own image and with their own hands.  They found their own savior who looked like they wanted Him to look like.

Here’s the problem with that.  It’s not our job to worship god-in-the-image-of-our-own-making.  We are called to worship God.  God is quite capable of defining who He is.  God is quite capable of being present in our life.  When we worship god-in-the-image-of-our-own-making we are told that we will be like the mist in the early morning or smoke rising from a campfire.  When we base what we do on things of our own making, we will not last.

No, here is the fundamental truth of the prophets.  The answer is not found by turning to ourselves and figuring out our own problems.  The answer is in turning to God.  The answer is in dropping our agendas and dropping our aspirations.  It is in dropping our desires.  The answer is found in looking to God and confessing that His ways are better than our ways.  His ways are always better than our ways.  The answer is in coming and genuinely looking for God rather than looking for the god-we-have-made-in-our-mind.  After all, God tells us boldly in Hosea 13 that there is no savior except Him.

The Sting of Death

Towards the end of Hosea 13, we find the source for an incredible passage in the New Testament.  In 1 Corinthians 15:50-58 Paul is writing about the change that will occur between this life and life eternal.  In that passage, Paul quotes Hosea 13:14.  “Oh death, where is your victory?  Oh death, where is your sting?”

In Hosea, these passages are dark.  Again we have God speaking rhetorical questions.  Will He save the Israelites from the death that is coming with the Assyrians?  Will He save them from Sheol – the place of the dead?

God’s answer is no, He will not save them.  They have brought iniquity upon themselves by following gods of their own making.  They will bear the consequences of that action.  They have rebelled; they will be punished.  They shall fall into judgment.

Salvation

However, salvation need not be far off.  Salvation comes with repentance.  This is the point of Hosea 14.  If people accept their iniquity and accept how they have been idolatrous, God will forgive and He can redeem.  When we cease turning to our idols and begin turning to our God, He will receive us.  This is the lesson that the Hebrew people will learn in captivity.

When we turn to God, God can heal us.  When we turn to God, God can make us fruitful once more.  He can restore to life that which was once dead.  He can cause the roots of the repentant to spread out and become strong once more.  This is where Paul comes up with the conclusion that he reaches in 1 Corinthians 15.  The sting of sin is death.  But through God we can have victory over death.

I love how this book ends.  “For the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.”  For me, this brings me back full circle to where I began this blog post.  The ways of the Lord are right.  It is not my ways or even the things I think God is a part of that are right.  The ways of the Lord – something quite external to myself – are right.

The key to the whole of Hosea – or any of the prophets – is in understanding this principle.  My relationship with God is not about me “redeeming and fixing the parts of me that are broken.”  Life is not about “patching up my life.”  Life is about realizing how much better God’s ways are and dropping everything to become His ways.  Relationship with God is about letting go of my agenda and adopting the agenda of God which is inherently foreign and external to me.

Life is not about me finding the god I want.  Life is about me finding the God I need.  That God can only be found in humble submission to His ways.

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Year 3, Day 211: Hosea 11-12

The Past Relived

Hosea 11 begins with God reminiscing about the past of the Hebrew people and how much it looks like their future.  God called Abraham out of Ur.  In Canaan, He developed His people.  When there was a famine, He provided for His people in Egypt.

Unfortunately, they stayed there.  They learned the Egyptian customs.  They forgot God.  They fell into bondage.  God rescued them.  The relationship with God was restored as the people came back to the Promised Land.  This time, they were large enough to take the land, not just dwell within it.  But even there they fell away.  They failed to remember who it was that brought out their nation and made them strong.  They began to only remember themselves.

Along comes Assyria.  The Hebrew people will go back into bondage.  The people of Israel will fall to Assyria.  Because they will not call upon the Lord and turn to Him, they will fall to the power of the world.  The hedge of protection God placed around them will be removed and they will feel the consequences of their actions.

Relenting

After pronouncing judgment, we see one of the most profound glimpses into the heart and mind of God.  God unleashed a string of rhetorical questions.  He evaluates His own decision.  In a moment of divine brilliance, we see into the mind of God that is constantly wrestling with the fragility and imperfection of the human heart.  In few other places in scripture do we get this kind of insight into the mind and passion of God.

Judgment will come, but the people will not be destroyed.  Punishment will follow, but it will not be complete.  God’s grace shall win out over His wrath.  Righteousness will be served in both Law and Grace.  Holiness will shine forth as the people are judged and spared.

We should be careful here, though.  It is easy to focus on the grace of God.  We focus there because that is what we want to see.  I think this is why Hosea ends the chapter as He does.  Hosea reminds us that even though God will not destroy them completely, they have not yet changed.  They have not yet repented.  Although God has determined that people shall be spared utter destruction, they will not be spared destruction completely.  Even as God’s mind turns to grace the Hebrew people are still continuing in their rebellion.  Judgment will come.  The people will fall.  It is only in the after effects of the fall that the people will learn to repent and see God’s grace beginning to unfold on the horizon.

Parallel to Jacob and Esau

In Hosea 12, God uses the twins Jacob and Esau as an analogy to Israel and Judah.  Remember, technically all of the Hebrew people are from Jacob as the people of Esau became Edom.  But as an analogy, God does something really neat here.

Jacob was known for grabbing His brother’s heel as he came out of the womb.  Jacob was known for always wanting to steal his brother’s thunder because he didn’t like being second.  Jacob was known with not humbling himself before God and instead wrestling with Him.  Jacob’s name even means “deceiver.”  In this light, God compares Israel to Jacob.

Hosea tells the people of Israel that they are like Jacob.  They have always resented the fact that the temple – God’s dwelling place – was in Jerusalem in the land of Judah.  So they created their own places of worship in order to rival the people of Judah.  They have wrestled with God and tried His patience again and again.  They think that they can deceive God with shallow praise and other words uttered upon their lips.

Yet, as they wrestle with God – undergo captivity under Assyria and then Babylon – they will find God.  As they wrestle with God’s ways and His punishment of them, they shall return to the Lord.  As Jacob eventually finds God and God changes His name to Israel, so too will the Hebrew people of the northern kingdom eventually turn and find that the nature of their relationship with God has also been changed.

As we ended chapter 11, so we also end chapter 12.  Israel will learn their place with God.  But judgment must come.  The people must see the error before they can repent and be restored.  So judgment will come.  Wrath will happen.  They will fall into captivity and serve foreign masters.

But it will not be the end of the story.

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Year 3, Day 210: Hosea 10

Luxuriant

I’m a math guy.  English is not naturally my strong suit.  Being a pastor and blogging every day has helped me compensate for my weakness.  But every once and a while I hit a word like luxuriant in verse 1 of the ESV.  Since I believe in being transparent, I am confessing that I had to look it up.  Here’s what the word means:

1. yielding abundantly : fertile, fruitful
2. characterized by abundant growth : lush

Here’s why I decided to open with this.  You see, this word sets the tone for the whole chapter.  Through Hosea, God is declaring that the Hebrew people in Israel were very fruitful.  They were prosperous.  They were successful.  They multiplied not only in population but in geopolitical influence.   They became important and significant.  They were once outcasts in Egypt; they were now significant members of the Middle East.

But what does the rest of verse 1 say?  They more successful they became, the more they increased their altars.  The more fruit they yielded, the more they turned their attention to anything but God.  Their success did not bring gratitude towards God.  Their hearts are false.

I can’t help but wonder something.  Throughout the course of human history, how many nations have gone through this pattern?  How many nations were granted prosperity from God yet the more they became successful the less they were humble before God?  How many nations grew more dependent on their own abilities rather than growing in their gratitude towards the Creator?  I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb by suggesting that this is actually a fairly common dynamic among human civilization.

Carried off to Assyria

Pushing through to the verses that comprise the first major section of this chapter we come across the rebellious attitude of the people of Israel.  The people utter false promises.  They don’t keep their words and the covenant.  They are actively worshiping false idols.  In fact, the biggest and most reputable of these idols was in Bethel (Beth Avon).

What does God say will happen?  The idol will be carried off to Assyria.  It will be set before the king of Assyria as a tribute to his grandeur.  Historically, we know that this was quite a common practice among the Assyrians.  They would bring the idols and altar pieces of conquered lands and place them before the king.  It was their way of saying that the Assyrian king and the Assyrians gods were more powerful than the gods of the people that they conquered.

Here’s the interesting thing.  When those idols are carried off, Assyria will make God’s point for Him.  Assyria will demonstrate that the false gods to whom the Hebrew have turned are nothing.  They are worthless and unable to protect the Hebrew people.  Those who rejoiced when the false altars were built will be put to shame.

Again, I can’t help but turn this back around to my own culture.  How many of us rejoice over things that are built by human hands – the very things that we turn into idols.  We rejoice at how great they are.  Maybe they make our life easier.  Maybe they make our life more entertaining.  Maybe they increase our wealth and prosperity.  Yet how many of these things only serve to enslave us when we are not looking?  Like the Hebrew people of Israel, we will become enslaved by the idols that we make which lead us away from God.

Farming Analogies

In the last third of this chapter we have several farming analogies.  Ephraim (a symbolic name for the northern kingdom of Israel) is compared to a cow that loved to thresh.  Threshing is the process of removing the edible parts of a grain from the inedible chaff.  It was often done by having a donkey or a cow walk in a circular path over the grain.

Compared to pulling a plow, threshing was easy work.  Usually the cow was free to eat from among the grain that it was threshing.  Therefore, what God is saying here is the people of the northern kingdom of Israel loved doing the easy work.  They loved having a soft, comfortable life.

However, in their comfortable life they were not righteous.  So God says that He is going to put a yoke on their neck.  If they will not be His people when He prospers them and causes them to be luxuriant, then they will work.  They will break up fallow ground.  They will learn to plant righteousness.

In fact, God goes on further to say that instead of being content doing the easy work of threshing the harvest that God was making, the people of Israel were more interested in sowing a harvest of sin.  They were more interested in plowing iniquity.  Instead of being content eating the fruit off God’s threshing floor, they ate the fruit of lies in their sinfulness.

Therefore, judgment will come to them.  War will come to their doorstep.  They chose war instead of peace with God.  So they will get war.  The Assyrians will come to them and put the yoke around their neck.  The Assyrians will come and show them what the alternative to working the threshing floor of God really feels like.  So often we choose rebellion from God not really understanding the full consequences of such a decision.

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Year 3, Day 209: Hosea 9

Inability

As I read through the opening verses of Hosea 9, one of the thoughts that struck me the most was the inability of the Hebrew people to properly offer sacrifices because of their rebellion.  God warns them through Hosea that the time will come when they will no longer be able to offer sacrifices.  They will be dragged to Assyria and be prevented from doing righteous behavior even should they want to do so.

I think this is a worthwhile thought to consider for the day.  Often as human beings we think that we can do anything.  We think we can do anything when we want to.  But the reality is that this is not always true.  Because of my sinfulness, I cannot give God praise anytime I want.  As we saw yesterday, my attitude might get in the way.  My circumstances might get in the way.  Life happens based on my choices and I have to deal with consequences.  Sometimes those consequences are so dire that I am in a position where I cannot do anything pleasing to God.

Again, this goes back to the theme that has been running through much of the readings the last few days.  My attitude affects my ability to genuinely worship God.  Just because I say that God is my savior doesn’t mean that I’m living it.  Just because my lips say that God is great doesn’t mean that my heart is buying that message.  When the Hebrew people go to Assyrian bondage, they will no longer be able to properly make sacrifices.  When my heart is sinful and I abandon God’s ways to the captivity of my sin, I find myself in the same place.

The Prophet’s Warning

The middle section of this chapter has to do primarily with the reaction of the people of Israel and the prophets that God sent among them.  What does God say?  His prophets find wrath and anger among the people.  The prophet is considered a fool and a madman by the Hebrew people.  The prophet was supposed to be the watchman over the Hebrew people.  Yet God’s people look for ways to trip Him up so that they don’t have to listen to him.  The whole people of Israel look for ways to avoid following God’s true prophets.

In some respects, this passage points us to God’s grace.  God knows we are sinful.  He knows that we are not perfect.  He knows that we will make mistakes.  Therefore, God sends us prophets into our lives who can speak truth to us.  God could leave us to fend for ourselves and know we would irrevocably mess things up.  But no, God sends prophets among us to keep us on track.   God sends prophets among us to help us find our way back to the path.  In His grace He sends people to us when we need them most.

So, how do we respond?  Do we see them with the eyes of grace that God intends when He sends them to us?  Or do we see them with the eyes of a person who doesn’t want to be pulled out of our sinfulness?  That’s a fairly potent question.  If we scorn those that God sends to us when we need them, how should we expect God to act in response?

Lament

To close this chapter, we have a lament from God.  God knows that he found His people as a wild plant in the wilderness.  He brought Abraham out of the pagan land of Ur.  They grew in faith until they went to Egypt, where they drifted away.

In Egypt, God found His people again as though wild in nature.  There God rescued them and pulled them back into shape.  He brought them out of bondage and freed them to live in the Promised Land.  Again they wandered away.

So God mourns.  God gave them what they needed.  They turned away and worshipped foreign gods.  They offered their children up to be sacrificed to the gods.  These were gods who focused their children elsewhere.  They sucked away their life until there was nothing left for God.  Slowly – generation by generation – the people fell away from God until there was nothing left.

As they reject God, they are rejected by God.  As they turn to other things, God releases them to the passion of their heart.  There is nothing else that a God who values free will can do!  If God forces the people to love Him, then they no longer have free will and their love is meaningless.  So God watches the Hebrew people reject Him again and again.  He releases them into their rejection.

He does it knowing that as they go, some of them will realize what is happening and begin to return to Him.  He does it because that’s the way love works in a free will relationship.  I think it was Linus from the classic Peanuts Cartoon who introduced me to a particular sage piece of wisdom as he advised Charlie Brown.  Although, I’m sure that Charles Schultz was not the originator of the saying.  Here it is: “If you love something, let it go.  If it comes back to you, then the love is truly yours to keep.”

That’s what God is doing here.  God desperately loves the Hebrew people.  But God is letting the Hebrew people reject His prophets and go on their way.  He knows that as they go, some will return.  Those who do were always His.

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Year 3, Day 208: Hosea 8

Poised Like a Eagle

Hosea 8 begins on a great note.  First, a trumpet is blown.  Trumpets are blown so that a declaration can be made.  The declaration might be something royal and glorious.  The declaration might be a warning of war.  Or, in this case, both.  After all, God had a royal announcement to make.  That announcement was that the Assyrians were coming for them in order to conquest them into slavery.

Then we hear that the Assyrians are poised over Israel like eagles.  Perhaps you are reading a translation that doesn’t say eagle in verse 1; it says vulture instead.  The Hebrew word here is almost always translated as eagle.  I prefer the image of the eagle because it demonstrates the regal nature and the authority that the Assyrians will show in their conquest over Israel.  There really will be no contest when the Assyrians come for the nation of Israel.  On the other hand, the image of a vulture is also correct in that there will be nothing left of Israel when Assyria is done.  The people will be deposed from the land.  The wealth will be carried off.  The land will be laid waste and bare.  The nation of Israel will be left like a dead carcass on the side of a road when the Assyrians are done with it.

Without Consulting the Lord

Again in Hosea we find that the consultation of the Lord is a big deal and a significant part of the reason that God is offended with the Hebrew people.  “They made kings, but not through me.”  “They set up princes, but I knew it not.”  I think these verses are clear in how God is offended by what the Hebrew people simply did.  They did as they thought was correct.

I guess I’ve never really thought about it deeply this way until the last few days.  But what arrogance it displays to make decisions without consulting God.  I know, people say that if you are trained correctly you should know what to do.  I hear people talk all the time that good leadership teaches people how to act so that the leader doesn’t have to be consulted over every decision.  I understand that point and I think there is validity in it.  But at the same time, I think God’s point is that we always want to pause and make sure that what we are doing is “according to the party line.”  When I assume that the party line has become who I am and everything I do “is the party line,” then I am being arrogant.

Even as I grow closer to God I will not be perfect in my responses.  My humanity mandates that occasionally I will do wrongly and I will not do things according to God’s ways.  In fact, any time I do something on my own and not through the power of God I can be assured that it won’t be according to God’s ways!  Right there we see the difference between human management and divine reality.  The truth is that even when properly trained as a Christian, without God’s presence I have no hope of doing anything right.  With that reality it becomes imperative that I stop and pause and make sure that God’s grace has gone before me.

The Nature of Sacrifices

I think I am going to close this blog on a fairly obvious point.  Yet it is a point that while obvious I don’t actually think I ponder as much as I should.  Here it is: not all sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Now, here’s where I think it is obvious.  In Hosea, God is complaining that all the altars that the people built have become altars of sinning.  Even though things are dying upon them and blood is being spilled, God is not pleased.  That’s the obvious part.  That’s the part we inherently get.

But let’s pursue that a bit more deeply.  Why doesn’t God find them acceptable?  God is offended because the sacrifices are not given according to the right spirit.  The sacrifice might be the same, but it is being offered to a different god.  A goat or a bull might be losing its life, but it isn’t losing its life in a manner that is pleasing to God.  What can we learn?  A sacrifice is more than just action.  A sacrifice is action mixed with attitude.

Woah.  Let that sink in for a second.

Suppose I give money to a church so that I can fit into a smaller tax bracket.  Is that a sacrifice combined with the right attitude?  If not, what do you think God thinks of my sacrifice?  Suppose I give some time so that I can fill out a report showing how much time I spent in Christian service and justify my expenditure of time to my governing board.  Is that the right attitude?  What do you think God thinks of my sacrifice?  Suppose I sing a prelude in church so I can hear people tell me how good I did.  Is that the right attitude?  What do you think God thinks of my sacrifice?

I think this is a deeper issue within humanity than it seems at first.  Here we can clearly see that it is not the action that automatically determines God’s pleasure.  One person can sing a prelude in church and another person could sing a prelude the next week.  One of them might be pleasing to God; the other might not.  It isn’t the action that is different; it is the attitude.  One person might give money but give it out of their surplus.  Another might give out of trust in God.  One gift is pleasing to God; the other is not.

I think it is powerful to desire to become a people who judge not on external standards – what we can see people do.  I need to be a person who refrains from judging on the external and looks deeply into the heart.  I need to begin by doing that to my own heart.

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Year 3, Day 207: Hosea 6-7

What a Repentant Generation Looks Like

In the opening three verses of Hosea 6 we catch a glimpse of what a repentant generation looks like.  It is a generation that looks upon calamity as a reason to turn to God and seek restoration in Him.  It is a generation that understands that healing comes from Him alone.  It is a generation that knows that restoration comes only a short time after genuine repentance.

It is also a generation that pursues God.  The ESV translates the first half of verse 3 to say, “Let us press on to know the Lord.”  The verb there is more impressively translated as pursue.  “Let us pursue knowing the Lord.”  The repentant generation understands that while God brings restoration to us, He desires us to respond by pursuing Him.

I love this idea of Godly pursuit.  God comes to us.  He restores us.  And then He waits for a response.  Do we go back into sin?  Do we sit on our hind quarters and wait for God to come back and do everything for us?  Or do we pursue Him and meet Him along the way?  Yes, nothing I do on my own has any merit.  I’m not making a case for works righteousness here.  But once restored, I believe God gives us His Spirit so that we can pursue Him in righteousness.  We do not pursue Him to become righteous.  A repentant generation pursues God because He has made them righteous.

Back to Reality

“Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early.”  As my wife says, it’s a very poetic way of saying, “Humanity is fickle.”  Human beings have a tendency to give love to God when He has done something for us or when He has made Himself very present in our life.  But soon we are distracted.  We find ourselves looking elsewhere.  Our focus shifts.  Like the small poufy-white clouds one sees early in the morning, when the heat of the sun – or the passion in our life – comes out, our desire to give praise to God often dissipates.  It evaporates from something once beautiful into something that isn’t even able to be seen. 

How sad.  It’s pathetic, really.  No wonder God spends so much time telling us how much we need a savior and can’t do it ourselves.

So God sent His Word and the prophets among the people.  He sent truth among the people.  He gave the people the ability to hang themselves.  They did.  They rejected the prophets and the Word.  The abandoned it without giving it any heed.  They showed their true colors.

Surprisingly enough, this reminds me of the reason Jesus preaches in parables in the New Testament.  Most people believe that Jesus teaches in parables to make hard concepts easy.  Actually the reverse is true.  Jesus speaks in parables to make it difficult to understand.  {Read Mark 4:10-12 and similar passages if you don’t believe me.}  Why does Jesus do this?  He does it to allow people to show Him their true character.  Those who hear Jesus and want to truly understand will come to Jesus and ask Him personally to explain.  Huh.  That sounds like the “pursue” dynamic I spoke of earlier!  But those who are just like “morning clouds” hear Jesus, become a part of the crowd, and then vanish when it becomes boring. 

God uses the prophets and His Word the same way.  They are all tools for getting us to show our true colors.  Do we pursue the ones through whom God speaks to us?  Do we pursue His word?  Or do we give lip service to the idea but then go our own way?

The Nature of the Heart

Hosea 7 reads more into the sin of the people and their leaders.  The list of sin is common.  Murder.  Lust.  Adultery.  Political intrigue.  I could continue, but you get the idea.

What I find really fascinating about this chapter is the continual reference to heat and ovens with respect to the passion of the people and their leadership.  Even when the intense fire of passion goes away, the oven is still hot and ready to continue its work.  So is the human heart.  Even in those moments where the flames of sinfulness go out, the oven of our heart is still warm and ready to be rekindled in sinfulness.

I think this analogy is profound when you consider the effect of sin on life.  Many of us think of sin as an action.  Once completed, we think it is just that.  What we don’t realize is that sin is also motivation, thought, incentive, consequence, and even behavior modification.  Even when the act is over, the effects of sin continue.  The effects of sin – the warmth of the oven, if you will – allow the process of sin to continue and even grow.

Idolatry

Again we end a chapter with God focusing Hosea’s words on the idea of idolatry.  Once more we see how God is offended by how the people have rejected His help in favor of the strength of Assyria.  The people believe more in what they can see in Assyria than what God has done as evidenced throughout history.  They continue to be idolatrous by turning elsewhere instead of to God.  The message from yesterday continues.  How often am I idolatrous by making decisions before turning to God?

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Year 3, Day 206: Hosea 5

Leaders Beware

This judgment coming to the northern kingdom of Israel was for the whole of the people.  All would be implicated within it.  But notice that the tenor of the first few verses is not focused upon the people in general.  Again, it is the leaders of the northern kingdom that have the true attention of God.  The spiritual leaders and the governmental leaders both are indicted.

The more I read through the Old Testament, the more importance I see upon the spiritual leadership of a community.  Yes, every person is accountable for their own relationship with God.  But the leadership of a place will make that easier or harder to achieve.

Think about it.  Take a person who is attending a church because they truly hear from God through the teachings, study, and missional work of a congregation.  Then take that same person and put them in a context where the leadership is poor and there is no great teaching, study, and missional work.  Where will that person grow the most?  Where will that person grow the best?  Yes, it is up to the person to grow.  No leader can make a person grow.  But leadership can certainly make a context in which it is easier or harder for people to grow.

This idea often causes me to mourn when I consider my context within American Christianity.  How many places of worship are really focused on paying the bills and keeping the lights on?  How many places of worship are caught up in maintaining the status quo?  How many places of worship are more interested in tradition and history than in spirituality?  How many places are more interested in appearances and not mission?

How many leaders foster that kind of environment?  How many leaders allow the people to naturally go that way rather than continue to focus the people back onto what really matters?  This is really why my heart mourns.  Too many spiritual leaders are occupational and not living out of their call.  Too many spiritual leaders are afraid of losing their livelihood and therefore they no longer challenge the people.  Soon they have compromised true faith and are joining the people in the slide down to sin.  That’s the main issue here in the early verses of this chapter.  Spiritual leaders are called to rise above and call people back to God.  It’s plain and simple.  We spiritual leaders are called to be holy – set apart, different.  Too many spiritual leaders are interested in being “one of the crowd.”

Two Phenomenal Images of Decay

As we progress through this chapter, we hear God say that He is like a “moth” and like “rottenness.”  This honestly made me laugh today as I read these words.  If I came up to you and said, “You remind me of a piece of fruit that is rotting,” how long would it take you to slap me?  Yet that is precisely the imagery that God gives for us to see Him.

Yet, think about this.  What does the moth destroy?  Clothing.  What does rottenness destroy?  Organic material.  God’s being rather blunt here.  God will destroy their society.  He will even destroy the people within the society.  Everything will be taken away.  God will be the source of their decay.  God’s punishment will destroy everything that they have built for themselves in their lusting after anything but God.

Root of the Problem

At the end of the chapter we really see where God gets upset.  When the nation of Israel was in political distress, to whom did they turn?  They didn’t turn to God.  They didn’t ask God to protect them.  Instead they called upon Assyria and begged for their assistance.  Idolatry.  They turned to something other than God.

If I take this macroscopic problem and bring it down to the microscopic level, I have to wonder about my own life.  How often do I solve my own problems without asking God for His input?  How often do I turn to other people without asking God to whom He would like me to go?

It is easy to categorize things like the love of money and power as idolatry.  It is easy to categorize things like the love of possessions and status as idolatry.  But here in Hosea we see that God isn’t satisfied with only defining the big and obvious things as idolatry.  Any time we step out on our own and don’t turn to God we are actually demonstrating idolatrous behavior.  When I step out and try and fix my own problem before turning to God, it is actually evidence of idolatry in my heart.  In a very small way, I am telling God that I am bigger than Him in doing so.

Wow.  I’ll be honest.  I didn’t see that coming in Hosea 5.  When I use that definition of idolatry, I’ve got to confess something.  I’m idolatrous often.

This is why I love the prophets.  You never know what is going to hit you and from where it is going to come.  But I think this is a huge moment for me to “walk the circle” today.  I think it’s time to go and figure out not just what God is trying to say to me, but what on earth I’m going to do about a problem that is so inherently rooted into my core being.

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Year 3, Day 205: Hosea 4

Echoes of the Past

Hear the words of Hosea 4:1-2.  “There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery.”  Can you tell me with certainty about when in human history these words are written?  I heard those words and I was set back in my chair.  Those words are speaking directly into my own culture!

This is why I love the prophets – as difficult to read as they are.  Are we a nation of steadfast love for Him?  No.  Is there knowledge of God in our land?  Not really.  Sure, there are a few people who know.  But in general?  We have more people trying to earn salvation through their good works than we have people receiving salvation and obediently responding.  However, are we a nation of swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery?  There’s a no-brainer!

We haven’t learned the lesson so we are doomed to repeat it.  At least that’s how the saying goes.  We will fall into a captivity of our own creating – as did the Hebrew people – if we are not careful.

The Echo Reverbs

Now hear the words of Hosea 4:7-8.  “The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame.  They feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity.”  Really?  Does this also not speak to the human condition as well as American lifestyle?  The more we increase the more we fall away.  The more we have, the more we feed off of the sinfulness of humanity.  This is capturing the human condition so beautifully!

There’s only one problem.  While it is true about humanity, it is actually being applied here in Hosea to the priests and prophets of the day!  It’s not that the people have strayed – and oh, how they have!  What Hosea is saying is that the religious leaders have strayed.  They have strayed and now are caught up in the sin of the people.  They are telling people “This is not sin, keep doing it.”  In fact, they are telling people, “This is not sin, here, let me join you!”

You would think that as knowledge increases so would wisdom.  You would think that as belief in God spreads that it would become more stable.  But that isn’t what happened among the Hebrew people.  The more faith in God became accepted among the people, the more people were drawn to that which was “not accepted.”  The Hebrew people were drawn to things like the child sacrifices that were performed by the Canaanites.  They were drawn to the religious sexual promiscuity (temple prostitution) common among religions developing in the Mediterranean region.  As God-fearing became the norm, it actually became the “overlooked.”  People fell away.

The sad part is that this is also true in Christianity.  For 300 years after Christ the church was persecuted.  In those 300 years, over half of the Roman Empire actually became Christian.  But then came the Edict of Milan, where Constantine first put the foot forward of Christianity becoming the state religion.  Suddenly the pastors who were running for their life became aristocracy.  Within 100 years, the Vandals were at the door of Rome ready to sack the city and lay the groundwork for splitting the Empire.  Over the next few hundred years the Roman Empire slipped into greater decline.  We call that pit into which it declined the “Dark Ages.”

You see, it is not general acceptance that drives faith.  It isn’t “everybody’s doing it” that fuels true faith.  It is actually persecution that drives faith.  When human beings get comfortable, we become complacent.  When we stop being challenged, we stop growing.  Thing that were once important to us now find themselves getting dusty on the shelf.

I have news for all of us.  It happened slowly over a period of 200-300 years among the Hebrew people (1000 BC – 722 BC).  It happened in the first 200-300 years when Christianity was the accepted religion in the Roman Empire (320 – 520 AD).  Here we find ourselves roughly 300 years of having Christianity be the accepted practice in America.  What is the social context in which we find ourselves?  Christian religious leaders are now joining the people in promoting sinfulness among the people and declaring that it’s fine.  Supposed “Christian” spiritual leaders are accepting the practices of the world and welcoming them into Christ’s church.  The reverb of past echoes rings loud in my ears today.

What will happen?  Well, what happened to the Hebrew people?  They were sent into captivity until faith awakened once more.  For Israel, that process would be a few hundred years.  {For Judah, that process would only be about 70 years.}  What happened to the Christian Church under Rome?  It suffered long and hard under the Dark Ages {for as much as a millennium in some places!} until people like Martin Luther and John Wycliff and Jan Hus and John Calvin came forward and revived faith.

If throughout history complacent religious people always fall into captivity until faith reawakens, what do you think will happen to us?  We are on the brink of spiritual captivity.  It is a spiritual captivity that our own spiritual complacency has brought onto ourselves.  In fact, I will go one step further.  We are on the brink of a spiritual captivity that our spiritual prostitution has brought upon ourselves.  We say we want God, but our hearts lust after just about anything but God.  Christian religious leaders are not any more immune and will be held just as accountable if not more.  So my question is, what are you going to do about it in your life?  What are you willing to help me do about it in my life?  What can I do to help you about it in your life?

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Year 3, Day 204: Hosea 2-3

Pursuit of Other Lovers

These early words of Hosea 2 are haunting.  Hosea’s wife has said that she will go after other lovers.  She will chase after other lovers who will give her things.  Oh how the human heart is for sale!  We chase after the people who make us feel good.  Or we chase after the ones who give us things.  Or we chase after the ones who pay attention to us.  We sell our affection and our time to those who give us what we desire.

A few verses later we find truth.  Hosea’s wife will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them.  In other words, she will pursue them, but she’ll never “have” them.  She thirsts and lusts for what they have to offer, but what they offer her will always be just out of her grasp.

Isn’t this really true about the human experience?  We see something that looks like fun.  So we do it.  We become a master of it.  And then suddenly it doesn’t fulfill us like it once did.  It slipped through our hands.  So we either pursue it more, or find something else to pursue.  Yet, what ever satisfies us completely?  What can we ever grasp onto that can satisfy us completely and totally forever?  Well, except God.  But I suppose that’s the point of these verses.  Gomer runs after everyone but her husband.  Human beings run after everything but God.

God’s Response

What is God’s response?  God says that she will uncover the impurity of His people.  God will take all the gifts offered to His people and allow them to decay and fade away.  All of the pleasant things that had come into the life of His people would be taken away.  They would be taken away because the people did not recognize that it was from God’s hand that they were truly given.  They would be taken away because the people did not turn to God and instead gave credit to those who did not deserve the credit.

I can’t ever read the prophets and not think about my own context.  Are we any different?  As a culture, how blessed are we?  Do any of us truly deserve to live where we live?  Do any of us truly deserve to have what we have in our life?  How much credit do we give to God for His blessing?  Do we even recognize it as God’s blessing?  Or do we see it as the work of our own hands and something to which we are entitled?

However, the response will not only be judgment.  God says that when His people are torn down, there they will realize what they had and who it was that gave it to them.  Essentially, God is saying that it is in their punishment that they will find the path back to Him.  It is in the consequences of their choices that they will find their way.

So that takes me back to a decade or two ago.  I remember that educational philosophy that said, “You can’t tell a kid they are wrong.  You might damage their ego.”  I see a culture that has developed out of that philosophy.  It is a culture that no longer is accustomed to learning out of the consequences of action.  It is sad.  But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be the end.  God can redeem.  We simply have to relearn the value of consequences and appreciating punishment for our negligence.

Forever

God then promises that to those who learn to appreciate God in the midst of the consequences will be with Him forever.  I can’t help but think of Christianity here.  What is the premise of Christianity?  We cannot save ourselves.  We are saved solely through the act of Christ on the cross.  When we learn to embrace God’s grace and embrace learning through the consequences of our sin, we will be God’s people.  When we are humbled before God by the many ways we turn away and run, we will be betrothed to God forever.  In our humbleness, God will put away the war that He has with us.  When we submit to Him, God will come to us in peace and redeem us.

In that day we will know what it means to be given the name “Not My People” but understand that God has made us “His people” anyway.  In the day of our humbleness and submission we will understand that those who deserved to have the name “No Compassion” will be given the name “Received Compassion from God.”

Gomer and Hosea

Having given this promise of restoration, God tells Hosea to go out and find his wife.  He tells her to buy her back.  Her lusting after other men has actually brought her into slavery – probably sexual slavery.  Hosea must go to the one who has bought his wife as a slave and buy her back.  Literally, Hosea must go and redeem her.

Imagine what the people thought of Hosea.  Here is a man whose wife left him.  Here is a man whose wife fell so far as to be involved in slavery.  What man in his right mind would come and buy her back when he had all the legal grounds for divorce so as to be done with her forever?

That’s God’s point.  Hosea redeems her as a sign of God’s love.  God has every legal right to divorce us completely and abandon us to our humanity.  But He does not.  He comes, drags us out of the things to which we have voluntarily enslaved ourselves, and he redeems us.  That’s incredible.

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Year 3, Day 203: Hosea 1

History of Hosea

As we being our cycle of reading through the Minor Prophets, we’re going to go back in time from where we last left the Old Testament.  Hosea brings us the whole way back to just before the northern kingdom (Israel) falls into captivity under Assyria.  Some people call Hosea the death-bed prophet because he was the last prophet of the northern kingdom.  Interestingly enough, the name actually means “salvation.”

Hosea is largely a story about God’s love for Israel as told through the marriage of Hosea.  Hosea’s wife is Gomer, and as we shall see she makes a great analogy for the people of Israel as a nation.  Hosea is a book that will cause us to think about marriage, God, and what it means to truly love.

Whoredom

The book begins on an interesting note.  God tells Hosea to go and take a wife who is a prostitute.  There you go!  Right there, you have one of the most interesting facts about the book presented front and center.  Gomer was adulterous.  Yet God told Hosea to not only marry her but to produce children with her.

Imagine Hosea’s reaction to this for just a second.  First of all, this is certainly unusual for God considering His Law.  Of course, God used the prophets to teach the Hebrew people through some very unusual methods.  Second, imagine what Hosea knows the rest of His life is going to be like.  Here is a woman who is accustomed to a certain lifestyle.  As they say, Hosea knows that a leopard doesn’t change its spots all that easily.  God is not calling Hosea to a life of ease and simplicity, that’s for sure.  Third, imagine the public perception of Hosea and his ministry.  How people surely judged him on account of his marriage!

Unfaithfulness

God and Hosea know that Gomer will not be faithful during the marriage.  However, that does not preclude children from the marriage.  God walked beside Israel in spite of the nation’s unfaithfulness.  God continued to try and raise up faithful followers – Hosea being only one example – in spite of the unfaithfulness of the nation of Israel.  That’s the great thing about God.  Unfaithfulness on our part does not force unfaithfulness on the part of God.  In fact, it is just the opposite.  As Hosea is faithful to Gomer in spite of her unfaithfulness, God does not abandon Israel.

Children

Hosea brings three children into the world through Gomer.  The first child is named Jezreel.  In this case, the meaning of the name (He Sows) is not as important as the geographic location.  Jezreel would be the place where Jehu brings God’s punishment upon the house of Ahab.  That being said, the name “He Sows” should not be ignored as well.  The people of Israel were sowing destruction into their country through their actions.  They were literally sowing God’s judgment upon themselves.

The second child is a girl.  Her name is Lo Ruhamah.  This name literally means “No Compassion” or “No Mercy.”  Imagine having that as your name!  The poor girl.  This child born to Hosea will be a sign to the people of Israel that their time of mercy is coming to an end.  God will no longer stay His hand of judgment.  They will pay nationally for their national sin.  They will go into bondage.

Before getting to the third child, we have a statement from God through Hosea about Judah – the southern nation.  God says that the people of Judah will be spared, but not spared by human effort.  The people will be saved because God will hear their last minute repentance.  Remember that the Assyrians march right up to the door of Jerusalem before coming in contact with a supernatural plague that almost overnight kills an incredible number of Assyrian warriors – 185,000 soldiers!  Judah is spared through God’s effort.

Gomer conceives again and gives birth to a third child – a second son.  This son is called Lo Ammi.”  This name means “Not My People.”  Again, imagine having that as your divinely appointed name!  Poor guy.  However, this son’s name is significant.  Through this son, God is telling the people of Israel that they will no longer be treated as God’s people.  The nations will come upon them and defeat them because God is removing His hedge of protection around them.

Think deeply about this last little piece of information.  God literally says, “You are no longer my people.”  What a devastating comment to come out of God’s mouth.  Imagine hearing from God that you are no longer a part of His family.  You would think that would bring a person back to repentance!  But the human heart is hard.  I guess if one doesn’t care about God’s opinion in the first place, one doesn’t care whether they are a part of God’s family or not.  But as one who is a part of God’s family, I cannot imagine hearing those words!

Hope

God does not end this chapter on a bleak note.  In spite of the dark prophecies born to Israel through the children of Hosea, God tells of a time when all will be restored.  There will be a day when the nation will be under a single king.  There will be a day when the people go up out of the land.  There will be a day when the people will be called Children of the Living God.

This prophecy has two levels of interpretation.  First, there is a time when the Hebrew people do come up out of bondage.  This happens when the Persians conquer the Babylonians.  The Hebrew people do come back to the land as a unified people.

However, I think this prophecy is best seen as fulfilled through Jesus.  In Christ, we see clearly that He is the God of the living.  In Christ, we are truly children of God – heirs to the promise of eternal life.  Through Christ, we do go up out of the land and proclaim God wherever we go.

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