epcblog

Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Hosea 13

There is something about the normal cycle of a person’s life that is very humbling. No matter how important or respected someone may be, eventually they get old. This often means that they run into some physical or mental limitations that can impede their abilities in doing the things that gave them a measure of achievement. This is just a normal part of life. The torch is passed on to those who will take the place of the ones who must become less as others become more.

Occasionally the decline that a leader faces can be unnecessarily precipitous. Because of some moral failure or lapse of judgment, a person may need to be removed from a position of responsibility very quickly. Nations also have their own life cycles, and they too can face a surprisingly swift demise because of some decline in character. Israel was exalted by the Lord. Her leaders once caused other nations to tremble. Though they were chosen by God, their time of national sovereignty eventually came to an end. Why did that happen? They loved worshiping Baal. They had lovely metal idols. They even offered human sacrifice to false gods, and kissed calves made by the hands of craftsmen to show their unswerving loyalty to things that were not gods at all. Therefore they brought about their own death, a kind of early destruction that seems to have happened before their time in some way. They will fade away quickly like chaff on a breeze, or like smoke that presses out through an open window.

This is happening despite the fact that the true God is in some sense Israel’s God. By all rights this nation should be associated with Yahweh far more than any other people on the face of the earth, at least at the time of Hosea. Particularly since the days of their deliverance from Egypt the only real God that they could ever have known is the Lord. In fact, at least in some way, they have known Him. They have heard the message of his saving power. They know that He brought their forefathers through the dry wilderness, granting them food and water.

Despite the Lord’s special care for the nation, when they became prosperous they forgot the God they knew. They lifted up their hearts, not in submission to their Redeemer, but in pride against Him and they forgot the Lord. There is a general principle here that should be considered. Times of prosperity can be times of the greatest spiritual danger. Though we may know the Lord, it is so very easy for us to live a life where we simply forget Him, even though we are wading in a sea of gifts that He has granted to us.

This cannot continue forever. The Lord does have a plan. He is working toward the conclusion of the Old Testament era. These judgments fit into a larger picture of divine glory. The time has come near where the Lord will fall upon His people as a lion falls upon his prey and tears it open with horrifying destruction. God will not stand by forever while his people give themselves over to sin. This is what must happen now to make way for another day. The New Testament day must come. Then beyond that time of gathering, the Resurrection Day will come when the dead shall rise and we will be together with the Lord forever. For this to happen something devastating must take place, for Israel has turned against the Lord, her only real helper.

No king can save her. God gave them a king and now those northern kings will be gone, all of whom were evil. What remains for Israel is death because of her storehouse of sin, a death she deserves. Should not Israel have birth and life? Yet it is as if the child of God that she should be simply will not arrive, not for this rebellious people. They deserve death and the grave. Will God ransom them from this fate? Without any real explanation, there comes a sudden expression of grace. “Death, where is your sting?” Does the Lord’s plan actually call for the ransom of His people? Is there some answer from God that will take away the sting of death?

The answer is yes, despite the fact that an Assyrian wind from the east will overrun Israel, despite the fact that the land that is ruled from Samaria will be no more, despite the fact that many people, even many little ones, will die. This must take place, but that will be a step in a process that will lead to the overturning of the powers of hell.

Many centuries later a man from the tribe of Benjamin will quote this chapter and unlock the mysteries that it contains. He will write long after the Assyrian power has come and gone. This man will be a Roman citizen, but also a Hebrew of Hebrews. The key to his understanding will come as a gift from the One who is at the very center of God’s defeat of death. The Apostle Paul will write after the coming of the Word of God incarnate. By the time Paul writes to the Corinthian church, the great King of kings will have been born. He will have died and risen. This Paul will have been stopped in the midst of his campaign of persecution against the Christ and His church. He will come to believe in the cross and the resurrection of one Man who took the place of many sinners. He will come to proclaim the truth that through the resurrection of this one Man, death and hell have been defeated, for they have truly lost their sting.

Just as this veiled announcement in Hosea 12 did not mean the removal of God’s plan for the destruction of Old Testament Israel, the victory of Christ for us does not mean that all our pain has immediately gone away. Our own mortality is a reminder to us of our failure under any covenant of works. Nonetheless, when we believe in Christ, in His atoning sacrifice, in His resurrection, and in His promise of a resurrection Kingdom, the trials that we do face become birth pains, and the process of growing old and even dying has lost its sting in the shining light of a coming resurrection glory.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 6:00 AM

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home