Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall!
Hosea 14:1 NIVUK
When my daughter was small, we flew to the Philippines via Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur. The cultural contrast could not have been wider.
They are quite strict in Schiphol Airport. Almost brutally so. As we headed through the terminal to find our flight to Malaysia, the same announcement ran out over and over again: ‘Will passenger... please go now to Gate Number...? If you are not there in the next five minutes, we will deny boarding and offload your baggage.’
It might have been a recorded message, but I detected a subtle perverted glee in the tone, as if turning away late passengers made the announcer happy somehow.
It was completely the opposite in Manila and Cebu airports. Filipinos have a much more relaxed relationship with time. Over and over, long lists of names were read out and the announcer was practically pleading with passengers to head to their gate, as if they were doing him a favour.
Hosea provides the people of Israel with pretty much a final plea to turn from their sin – to repent and be converted – before their capital Samaria fell to the Assyrians and the people were taken into exile. Hosea is acutely aware of the urgency of this plea.
Hence the emotion behind the calls for people to be converted, to repent. It never, ever comes from the simple need to count heads or to boast or to get a better mansion in Heaven.
Or, at least, it shouldn’t.
It should only come from the desire to get someone out of the way of impending danger – and eternal danger at that.
As Ezekiel, a contemporary of Hosea, stated, with the same emotion:
Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?
Ezekiel 18:23 NIVUK
As Paul told Timothy:
This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
1 Timothy 2:3-4 NIVUK
If someone is in danger, it is simple human nature to want them to be out of danger.
And this is where our culture has really got things backwards.
When the crew were busy telling people in the Titanic to head for the life rafts because the ship was sinking, I doubt anyone was complaining that wearing a life jacket was a poor fashion choice, or that the restaurants were closed, or that having to leave the ship was infringing on their human rights. No-one with any common sense would sue the crew to silence them because they didn’t want to hear about the danger.
That would be complete foolishness, right?
Right?
Then how much more now!
Hosea was pleading with his people to turn from their sin because he could see the suffering coming. Listen to me: the only reason why Evangelical Christians want you to listen to their message is not to make you like them, it’s because they can see suffering coming towards you and they want you to be safe.
As well as the emotion, we also see the motion:
Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: ‘Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount warhorses. We will never again say “Our gods” to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.’
Hosea 14:2-3 NIVUK
During the turbulent time in which Hosea lived, one of the kings of Judah, Ahaz, was being attacked by the kings of Aram and the king of Israel. Ahaz was an evil man. He did not seek the Lord for help. Instead, he sent a submissive letter to the king of Assyria, asking him for help (1 Kings 16:7-9).
It is this that Hosea is referring to: the act of relying on human connivance instead of God.
Hosea gives them four steps here:
· Ask God for forgiveness
· Praise Him for His deliverance, giving Him His proper place
· Stop trying to do things your way
· Worship only God, abandoning false worship of idols
This is what it takes to be converted. This is what it takes to repent. This is what it takes to be saved.
We must admit our weakness, give up the idea of following our own plans and our own ways of getting what we need and instead depend on God.
Apart from the emotion and motion, we also see God’s reaction.
And what a beautiful reaction!
· ‘I will heal’ (Hosea 14:4) – God will replace their heart of stone with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 14:10)
· ‘I will love’ (Hosea 14:4) – and we see no greater love than the love Jesus showed on the cross
· ‘I will answer’ (Hosea 14:8) – God will respond to them when the call, and even before they call (Isaiah 65:24)
· ‘I will care for him’ (Hosea 14:8) – And what could be better than knowing Almighty God cares for you!
It is because of this that the people of God would prosper and would recover. It would be because they’d set aside their idols and there clueless conniving and obeyed God instead.
This all leads to Hosea's conclusion. And that conclusion is so simple: God ways are right; our ways are wrong; wise people know this and live it.
Hosea’s message is simple: sin is getting God’s people nothing and leading them nowhere. They need to repent. They need to be converted. They need to stop thrashing around in the dark and instead receive peace and wisdom from God, even in their frightening situation.
So what about you?
If repentance and being converted into someone who lives life on God’s terms is such a good idea – and it is – and a wise decision – and it is – then why haven’t you done it yet?
Why haven’t you come to God and repented?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I confess before You that I am a sinner. My own clever thinking won’t save me – it got me into this mess in the first place. I need You. I need You to be my Saviour and my Lord. Come into my life and help me repent of my sins, I pray. Amen.
Questions
1. What do these verses show that our culture has misunderstood about Evangelical Christianity?
2. What did God's people do when Hosea confronted them with their sins? Why is this the right thing to do?
3. Will you do it? Will you repent?
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