#DailyDevotion Are Worldly Pleasures Leaving You Empty?
Hos. 9 Israel, don’t celebrate and be delighted like other nations, because you have gone lusting from your God, loving a prostitute’s pay on every threshing floor. 2Threshing floor and vat will not feed you, and new wine will fail you.
Israel refuses to see the train coming straight at them on the tracks. Instead of mourning and fasting because of their sins they are celebrating and being delighted like other nations (most likely in debauchery). Instead of going to the temple in Jerusalem at the appointed feasts and day of atonement, they’ve gone lusting from their God. They’ve been worshiping idols and other gods on their threshing floors. It’s really sad. Unfortunately, the descendants of once former Christians in many countries have gone the same way. They’ve actually returned to the false gods their forefathers departed in freedom from in Christ. Others have despised the God of the Bible and turned Him into some sort of therapist or vending machine. Israel because of their departure would experience famine. Our country and the former mostly Christian countries are not Israel though. The departure from Christ in our place leaves only a spiritual famine which leaves those who departed from Christ filling themselves with food which cannot satisfy or sustain their souls and spirits.
3You will not stay in the LORD’s country. Ephraim will go back to Egypt, and the people will eat unclean food in Assyria. 4They will not pour out wine to the LORD, nor will their sacrifices please Him. Their sacrifices will be for them like the food mourners eat: all who eat it will make themselves unclean because their food will only satisfy their appetite. It will not come into the LORD’s house.
Because they have departed from the LORD and no longer worship Him from their hearts in the land, the LORD will remove them from the country even as the LORD removed the previous inhabitants. Ephraim, which stands for Israel here, will return to misery (the meaning of Egypt) and bondage in Assyria (the agent of the wrath of the LORD). This takes place in 722 BC. The people will eat unclean food in that place because they have become in themselves wholly unclean by their sinful hearts. Even the food which normally would not be unclean will be unclean because the LORD no longer accepts their sacrifices. They will no longer be able to offer sacrifices to the LORD. Again, their bread will not satisfy them. It will be like the food of mourners who cannot be comforted. It will only satisfy their appetite because they will not know the LORD had provided it in His providence. Their food sacrifices which they used to offer to the LORD then consume in communion with the LORD is just common food now like the beasts eat.
5What will you do on the day appointed for an assembly, the day of the Lord’s festival? 6Even if they get away from the destruction, Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them. Where they had their treasures of silver, thistles will grow; thorns will be in their tents.
This speaks of those not killed in the coming invasion by the Assyrians. Those who did not die were taken as captives in a foreign land. There they will die and be buried. Their former opulent residences will now be overgrown. Let us not be like the Israelites but daily repent of our sins and trust in the goodness of our LORD Jesus Christ for all good things.
Almighty God, grant us daily repentance, turning from our sins and turning to You and You Son Jesus Christ for all good things. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.