epcblog

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

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Hosea 7

The Lord loves His people. As Jesus loved a wicked Jerusalem, and desired to gather His people to Himself as a hen gathers her young, God loves even the very wayward northern kingdom. He would like to bless them. Yet the covenantal arrangement that would grant them peace and prosperity in their land is conditional upon their obedience to His Law. Those terms require that they now receive curse rather than blessing and that the land be taken away from them. Their evil deeds are obvious. Rather than being a righteous display to the nations of the God who formed them, they are an advertisement to others of the one who is called the father of lies, who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

Though there is trouble coming upon them, they do not seem to be adequately aware of their situation. Their understanding of the Lord is weak, thinking that He is oblivious concerning their evil. It is a great blessing to have the Lord remember our sins no more, but this can only happen according to God’s plan. The Lord, speaking through Hosea, says that the evil deeds of Israel surround them and that their transgressions are in front of His face.

Kings like Hezekiah and Josiah in the south were a great help to the people, leading them in true repentance and demonstrating the way of faithfulness. The kings in the north, particularly in the time of Hosea, were not good examples in this way. Both the kings and the people were unfaithful to God.

Hosea uses the image of a red-hot oven in discussing the hearts of the people. They retain the heat of their drunkenness and the fire of their murderous plots. Particularly at the very end of the days of the northern kingdom, there was great instability, with kings lasting for very short reigns and then falling by the hands of murderers. In all of this it would seem like no one was sincerely calling upon the Lord.

Two things could be said of the northern tribes at this time. First, they do not seem to understand the seriousness of the Lord’s case against them. Second, when they do turn for help they have no sense of where to go. They certainly do not return to their God. They seem to flit among various peoples and nations, expecting that any help that they would require would come from foreign lands.

In particular they seem to turn to the two most powerful empires in the region, Egypt and Assyria. This is very ironic, since God long ago had delivered them from the bondage of their slavery in Egypt, and it would be the Assyrians who would be the agents of their final demise. Yet it is neither Egypt nor Assyria who is said to capture them in their final hour. This foolish bird of Israel will be caught in a heavenly net. The Lord would have been their only hope in an earlier day. It will be the Lord who will now send an enemy nation against them.

Israel is in the worst trouble. They will receive the sentence of “woe” and “destruction” upon them from the Lord God Almighty. They have rebelled against him in a fatal way. The Lord God has always been the only ultimate source of help for His people. He alone is capable of buying them back from their most fatal wanderings. What will He do when they all seem to have either forgotten Him or have concluded that He is the problem? They want blessing and they give themselves over to pagan practices of self-destruction. They not only ignore the duty of true repentance, they plot evil against Him.

God would have been completely justified in simply waving His hands in disgust against them. Yet we return again to the fundamental realization that the Lord has had a loving purpose concerning Israel that He will not abandon. He is utterly committed to the redemption of many who can only be described as the ungodly.

Sometimes we are amazed at the Lord’s judgment against sin, but there is something much more amazing than the righteous anger of God against His people. What is utterly shocking is the Lord’s unquenchable love and faithfulness for us when we have so grievously sinned against Him. What can account for His willingness to give His Son for us as an atoning sacrifice? It can not be our attractiveness or our goodness. The only answer that we are given for the willingness of God to save the ungodly elect through the blood of His Son is this: It was because of the great love with which He loved us.

We will not always be an ungodly people. This is what Israel was, and too often this is the way that we still are today. One day all sin will be finally removed from us, and we will serve the Lord gladly forever. This perfect sanctification that will come to all the people of God in the age to come is a further indication of the power of the cross of Christ. Behind all of His righteousness and holiness is a foundational and eternal decision to love His elect for the glory of His own Name. That love burns for us like a hot oven. It is a fire that will never be quenched. We have been captured in the net of Christ’s glorious love, and have been granted the privilege of willingly worshiping the Lord. One day we will do so in the perfect beauty of the most wonderful holiness, for the salvation that Christ has for His beloved will be perfectly complete.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 6:00 AM

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