{"id":1533,"date":"2021-10-24T19:36:10","date_gmt":"2021-10-24T18:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=1533"},"modified":"2021-10-24T19:36:12","modified_gmt":"2021-10-24T18:36:12","slug":"israel-wandering-from-god-hosea-78-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=1533","title":{"rendered":"Israel wandering from God Hosea 7:8-16"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is remarkable that when Hosea married his wife Gomer he knew she was going to be unfaithful to him. It is even more remarkable that God set his love upon his chosen people Israel, when God knew in advance all the ways in which they were going to be unfaithful to him. They would worship false gods, making idols for themselves like the golden calf and also bowing down to the Baals and the Asherah, the fertility gods of the surrounding pagan nations. Instead of putting their trust in God, Israel would also form political alliances with other nations. They would reject God\u2019s laws and desecrate his Temple and pollute his Sabbaths.
\nYet God kept on loving the Israelites. For almost a thousand years since Moses, God had kept on loving his chosen people. From time to time, God would call his people back to himself through good kings, and through the priests, and through his messengers, prophets like Elijah and Elisha and now Hosea. In Hosea chapter 7, God is still calling his people to repent and return to him and he uses four memorable pictures to illustrate the sins of Israel. These pictures can act as warnings for Christians as they show us the kinds of sins believers can fall into even today
\nIsrael the half-baked loaf \u2013 the problem of partial holiness.
\nThe Northern Kingdom of Israel is also called Ephraim,
\nEphraim is a flat loaf not turned over.
\nWhen you are cooking bread in a pan rather than in the oven if you don\u2019t turn it over half way through it ends up only half cooked \u2013 the perennial problem Mary Berry would call the \u201csoggy bottom\u201d. Israel is as worthless as a half-baked cake.
\n9 Foreigners sap his strength, but he does not realise it.
\nThere were two problems \u2013 worshipping foreign gods and also making alliances with pagan nations. Both of these were draining the life out of Israel as they were relying on other nations instead of the one true God. One commentator wrote, \u201chow better to describe a half-fed people, a half-cultured society, a half-lived religion, a half-hearted policy, than as a half-baked loaf \u2013 inedible because it is burnt on the one side and raw on the other?\u201d God demands wholehearted obedience. His chosen people should belong to him alone, set apart for him. God commanded this time and time again in the law of Moses.
\nLeviticus 11 44 I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground. 45 I am the LORD, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.
\nIn his farewell speech Moses had warned the Israelites of the dangers of compromise and set a stark choice before them.
\nDeuteronomy 30 15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
\n17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
\nMoses had warned Israel. The command is clear, to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength and all our mind. And we have seen this call to stand out from the crowd and to be different repeated many times in the New Testament. To be set apart, holy as God is holy.
\n1 Peter 2 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God\u2019s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
\n11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
\nPeople should see the difference Jesus makes in our actions and in our speech, in our lifestyle and in our love. In Hosea\u2019s time Israel was led astray by fertility idols. Today too many Christians are distracted by the all the false gods of Money and Entertainment and Celebrity and the lure of a nice comfortable easy life. How tempting it can be to become a little bit holy, but not too holy. But if that is the case then we become as unpalatable to God as a half burned half raw half-baked loaf. The problem of partial holiness. Then there is a second picture.
\nGrey hairs here and there \u2013 the problem of spiritual decline
\nHosea 7:9 \u2026His hair is sprinkled with grey, but he does not notice.
\nNew Living Translation Their hair is gray, but they don\u2019t realize they\u2019re old and weak.
\nGood News Translation their days are numbered but they don\u2019t even know it.
\nIf the Israelites had turned away from God suddenly and dramatically, they would probably have realised the mess they were in. But here is the danger with unfaithfulness and adultery. It takes something which is pure and then little by little pollutes and destroys it. That which was pure is spoiled \u2013 it is adulterated. This is what had happened to Israel. One act of worshipping false gods, then another, then a political alliance, turned into temple prostitution. The Israelites\u2019 faith in the living God was polluted so slowly and gradually that they didn\u2019t even notice. Their hairs turned metaphorically grey as their vitality was sapped away.
\nAnd that is the way some Christians drift away from God. Not in one big obvious sin. Not in one dramatic fall. But a slow and imperceptible decline. A little stumble here, letting standards slip there. Skipping one worship service, then another one the next month, then being too busy for prayer meeting or home group or Christian service. Slow decline turns into apathy.
\nI think this is a picture of how some Christians have drifted through the Covid lockdowns and are now struggling to return to church and to fellowship. It is too easy to become spiritually flabby without even noticing.
\nChurches can fall into the same trap. I think this is also a picture of how some corners of the church have been declining for decades. One little compromise here, disregard clear Bible teaching on certain issues there, accommodating themselves to the views of the world around. The slippery slope of spiritual decline \u2013 grey hairs here and there, and they don\u2019t even know it.
\nRevelation 3:1 \u2018To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
\nThese are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.
\nA church which rests on its laurels, which becomes complacent about holiness and prayer and evangelism, which doesn\u2019t care about biblical truth and sound doctrine, can so easily follow Israel into spiritual decline.
\nThere is hope for us all, however few or however many grey hairs we may have. We can always return to God. But there is a solemn warning for us all from the story of Israel.
\n10 Israel\u2019s arrogance testifies against him, but despite all this
\nhe does not return to the LORD his God or search for him.
\nIsrael had become so comfortable in their spiritual adultery that the whole nation had passed the point of no return. Judgment would be coming. Then there is a third vivid picture in Hosea 7.
\nIsrael the silly pigeon \u2013 the problem of wavering loyalties
\n11 \u2018Ephraim is like a dove, easily deceived and senseless\u2014
\nnow calling to Egypt, now turning to Assyria.
\n12 When they go, I will throw my net over them; I will pull them down like the birds in the sky. When I hear them flocking together, I will catch them.
\n\u201cSilly, witless doves,\u201d the New Living Translation puts it. \u201cBird-brained, mindless, clueless\u201d the Message says.
\nGod was their help and strength. It was God who had brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and through the Red Sea safely on dry land. It was God who had given them the victory as they took possession of the Promised Land. Egypt could never save Israel. Assyria could never save Israel. Only the Almighty God would be able to rescue them from their enemies. But instead the Israelites kept wavering from one political alliance to another. God would be their strength and refuge, their ever-present help in times of trouble. But instead of putting their trust in God, Israel were just flitting around.
\nHere is a challenge for Christians. If we face problems, when do we turn to God. First? Or last? Or not at all? When we have problems with our health, or with neighbours or in our family, money problems, fears about the future. Do we turn to God and depend on God? Too often Christians struggle with problems by themselves, or turn here there and everywhere for solutions or for help, instead of looking to God for help. Israel were turning to other nations instead of to God, silly pigeon!
\nPartial holiness, spiritual decline, wavering loyalties. These problems have inevitable consequences, expressed in the fourth picture.
\nIsrael the faulty bow \u2013
\nHosea 7 16 They do not turn to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow.
\nTheir leaders will fall by the sword because of their insolent words.
\nFor this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.
\nBecause they refused to put their trust in God, his chosen people of Israel had become as unreliable and useless and ineffective as a crooked bow which always missed the target. When it came to fulfilling God\u2019s purposes and bringing glory to God, Israel were not a help but a hindrance. More useless than a faulty bow which doesn\u2019t only miss its target but risks injuring other people or even recoiling and killing the user and causing more damage than the enemy. God\u2019s people had strayed from him and rebelled against him. It wasn\u2019t just that they were missing out on the blessings God longed to pour down on them. Israel were no longer able to fulfil God\u2019s purposes for them. They could not fulfil their destiny as a holy nation and a royal priesthood. So God\u2019s honour was insulted. His glory was tarnished in the eyes of the world. God\u2019s chosen people had become a half-baked loaf, with grey hairs but they didn\u2019t know it, a silly pigeon and a crooked bow. Now they were worse than useless to God.
\nLike any church which sees discipleship and holiness and evangelism as optional extras.
\nLike any Christians who have lost their way and become spiritually weak and powerless.
\nLike any believers whose enthusiasm and commitment flit from one thing to another but never to the things of God.
\nAll these are no longer a strength but instead have become a liability in God\u2019s continuing mission to redeem the world. They are missing the target. Their stories are warnings to Christians of sins to avoid. Paul wrote this to the Corinthians about the sins the Israelites fell into in the Old Testament.
\n1 Corinthians 10:11-12 These are all warning markers \u2014 DANGER! \u2014 in our history books, written down so that we don\u2019t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel\u2014they at the beginning, we at the end\u2014and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don\u2019t be so naive and self-confident. You\u2019re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it\u2019s useless. Cultivate God-confidence. (Message)<\/p>\n

The half-baked loaf \u2013 grey hairs here and there \u2013 the silly pigeon \u2013 the crooked bow. Let us not become complacent or make the mistake of saying, \u201cwe would never do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is remarkable that when Hosea married his wife Gomer he knew she was going to be unfaithful to him. It is even more…<\/span><\/p>\n

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