#DailyDevotion Who Or What Do You Call Upon For Help?
Hos. 7 4They are all adulterers, like a stove heated by a baker, who stops stirring up the fire from the time the dough is kneaded until it is ready to bake. 5On the day of our king’s celebration the officials have made him sick with the heat of wine. The king joins hands with violent men. 6While they are plotting, they prepare themselves inwardly like an oven. All night their anger smolders, but in the morning it burns like a flaming fire. 7They all glow like a stove, and consume their rulers. All their kings have fallen. There is no one among them who calls on Me. 8Ephraim mixes with other nations. Ephraim is a cake that isn’t turned. 9Strangers devour his strength, and he doesn’t know it; gray hairs are sprinkled on him, and he doesn’t know it. 10Israel’s arrogance testifies against them, but for all this they don’t return to the LORD their God or look for His help.
There is a mixing of a couple of different comparisons here. We have a stove that is being heated and when it’s time to use it gets as a blazing fire and in between we have the king and other officials being drunk to the point of being sick. The root of both being adultery, i.e. idol worship. So we got this dough that is kneaded and rising during the course of the night. It seems to me this is Israel’s sins fermenting until the time of judgment comes upon them.
Because of their adulterous relationship with idols, not only the ones in Dan and Bethel of the LORD, but also the foreign gods they have incorporated, whose worship includes a fair amount of licentiousness, the plot in anger against one another. The day of the king’s celebration could be his birthday or the ascension to the throne. Their outward drunkenness resembles the state of their souls and their hearts. Plots of different rulers go against the king, as prophesied by the prophet that Jeroboam II dynasty would not last past the 4th generation. Indeed, they pass in rapid succession, from political intrigue and treachery.
The source of all this we see in verse 7, they no not call upon the LORD. This reminds of the time after the Transfiguration of Jesus where the apostles could not cast out a demon from a boy. Jesus accosted them for their lack of faith. When asked why they could not do it, Jesus replies, “This kind comes out only by prayer.” The disciples didn’t even call upon the LORD their God to do this thing. What great troubles have come upon us because we do not pray. Prayer will not keep all troubles at bay. The LORD still disciplines us. But what tragedies could we have prevented and kept at bay if only we had called upon the LORD?
Ephraim, instead of trusting in the LORD, trusts in its alliances with other nations. They are half-baked so to say, because of this. Depending on other nations, strangers are sapping his strength and aging him before his time. He doesn’t even realize his precarious state of being. The LORD says his arrogance speaks against them and they don’t turn to the LORD their God or look for His help. They depend on foreigners and idol worship, false gods to deliver them.
Who or what are we turning to for help instead of the LORD? Science, politics and politicians, government, our jobs and careers, our children or spouse, the Church, food, sex, drugs/alcohol, and rock and roll? Turn to the LORD Jesus Christ, your heavenly Father, in the Spirit for all your needs and wants and be content with how the LORD responds to you. Say the LORD’s Prayer three times a day with all your heart, morning, noon and night, and see what the LORD does.
Heavenly Father, may we call upon You constantly with all our cares and turn from all false hopes. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.