Monday, July 4, 2016

Hosea 2:16, 17C – 18, 21-22

Thus says the LORD:
I will allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.
She shall respond there as in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.

On that day, says the LORD,
She shall call me “My husband,”
and never again “My baal.”

I will espouse you to me forever:
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD.

I am your God and you are my people. This is the oath the Lord took to Israel. It is a covenant oath that God as never forgotten. He has never strayed. He has never been unfaithful to it. Israel, on the other hand, has been unfaithful to this covenant every time things got good. It is a never ending cycle of covenant fidelity/covenant infidelity. Israel is in misery and cries out to God. God hears his children and responds. He brings his people into prosperity and the people forget the Lord.

Is it really that different from our own times? America came out of the World Wars as a country in distress. We were a people in misery. We were closer to God in those days. Churches were full. Confession lines long. People had a sense of responsibility to God, country, and each other. There was nothing we couldn’t accomplish. There was no task too great.

Then we entered into the decade of decadence. This was the decade of my generation. The Greatest Generation made a pledge that their children would want for nothing, that they would have everything they never got to have. That oath was fulfilled with my generation. It was the age of greed. We saw the family size start to drop off because you couldn’t provide everything for eight or more kids. My generation limited it to one or two because you couldn’t give everything to your kids and still have everything you wanted as well.

We have marginalized the role of fathers. Divided families. Removed God from the public square. We have gotten to the point where we have demanded that everyone be able to define reality for themselves. Things that are unchangeable have become optional and subject to personal interpretation.

History constantly repeats itself. This era will be no different. We are headed into despair and dark times. We have to be put back into misery so we can learn that there is a God. We must cry out to him as Israel did.

God will call to us from the desert of our lives, when all seems bleak and lifeless. We will be reinvigorated and our hearts will swell with love for the forgotten God. God will renew the vow he made to his people and we will return to covenant fidelity with him. The false gods we worship today and sacrifice our children to will be forgotten and we will be reminded…

I am your God and you are my people.