Hosea 8:1-7
“Set the trumpet to your lips! One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law. To me they cry, “My God, we—Israel—know you.” Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him.
They made kings, but not through me. They set up princes, but I knew it not. With their silver and gold, they made idols for their own destruction. I have spurned your calf, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence? For it is from Israel; a craftsman made it; it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces. For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
Many in and outside the Church today are wondering how long can a nation whose foundation was established on the precepts of Scripture ignore God? The not so hidden answer may be found in Hosea chapter 8, for in the first fourteen verses we have God speaking to Israel. In verse one God tells them to sound the alarm, for He was sending an army to swoop down on them, and why was this happening to a chosen people, the people of God? Because they sought other gods, house gods made of silver and gold, much like many in the church who will search for hours to find a lost cell phone, but have no desire to open the Bible for instruction on how to love and obey our LORD. And they, like us cried out to God; “My God, we—in the American Church—know you” as if knowing God was a free ticket to live as we desire.
As I write this paper, we in the United States of America are listening to many voices that say they are the answer to our leadership problems they will be the best President we can hope for. Maybe we as a people should take note of what God is telling Israel; that they made kings and set up princes, but not once did they come to Him for counsel.
At Hosea’s time on earth Samaria was the capital of Israel’s northern kingdom, and listen to the prophet Isaiah as he speaks a warning to Jerusalem the southern kingdom in Isaiah 10:10-11, “As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images?” The northern kingdom, Israel had allowed prosperity to make them arrogant, they looked to the military might and politicians and not God, so they are setting themselves up for the perfect storm. Does this give one living in the USA something to be alarmed about? Have we also sowed the wind, and then should we not reap the whirlwind?
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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