Thursday, September 7, 2017

Hosea 4 : 1-19 (Daily Bread of 7/9/2017)

BECAUSE THEY LACK UNDERSTANDING

Key verse 4 :6
God calls for a case against His people. The words : ignorance, wasting away , ignominy and prostitution are frequently repeated in this text. This reveals the spiritual condition of His people. Nowadays the World is turning 100 times faster that it did a century ago. However, its inhabitants are not as wise as those who were around a century ago. Where is our World going ?
1.   They will perish as they lack understanding (1-10). Israel gives itself over to prostitution and it rallies itself with idols that have no value before God. The Israelites offer quite a number of sacrifices and the appoint a number of priests but in reality they give their real devotion to the idols on the mountain tops. Given their compromised lifestyle, Bethel (The House of the Lord) has become Beth Haven (The House of nothing) (15). The country is filled with wickedness and violence. Their morality is so degraded that one cannot even find someone who is faithful and loyal. Everbody each other and curse each other. God pronounces His sentence upon them : they will all die. They forgot God's law and that's why they have become so ignorant. They however pretend to be wise and because of this they have become mad. They have remplaced God's infaillible glory with that of and beasts who are faillible creatures (Rm 1 :23) However, they still aren't satisfied. God's judgement will fall on them all at once (5,9).

2.      Their double life exposed (11-19)
Their lifestyle is luxurious, adulterous and excessive. The sons and the daughters have become corrupted due to their mothers' influence. From generation to generation they have become more and more corrupted. They seeks wisdom from trees and they speak to their walking sticks. Then during the festive periods they go into the sanctuary and offer sacrifices to God and they do this with they concubines (14). They carry these offerings to God in order to ease their consciences. However, God says that He will not work in their favour and thus their daughters and their step-daughters will all perish. They ought to be ashamed of these offerings as even though they are numerous they aren’t worth anything because of their double lifestyle. Their confession « God is alive » (15) is just a meaningless saying like « the good God loves us » that many say today. The most important thing before God is when we live according to His Word (Rm 12 :2). The prophet, knowing the destruction that sin produces, hopes that at least the nearby country Juda will be saved (15).  

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