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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