#DailyDevotion Will The Church Learn From Ancient Israel?

Hosea 5 “Hear this, you priests! Listen, people of Israel! Let the royal family open their ears! You have been sentenced because you have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread out on Tabor; ²your rebels have gone deep into sin; and I will punish all of you. ³I know Ephraim, and Israel isn’t hidden from Me. Ephraim, you are now living in sexual sin, and Israel has made herself unclean. ⁴Their deeds won’t let them go back to their God because they have the spirit of lust in them and don’t know the LORD. ⁵What Israel is proud of testifies against them; sinning makes Israel and Ephraim stumble, and Judah stumbles with them. ⁶With their sheep and their cattle they come to search for the LORD but do not find Him. He has withdrawn from them.

Things are not looking good for the Israelites. It’s no doubt Hosea is a true prophet because he is full of doom and gloom, though not without cause. No one is escaping the judgment for they are responsible for the nation’s actions in each of their vocations. The priests, the people, and the royal family are all going to be held accountable for the country’s apostasy. 

The priests, the royal family, and the people of Israel all have fallen away from the LORD and on top of worshiping the LORD in the form of golden calves at Dan and Bethel, where the LORD did not tell them to offer sacrifices, they also are worshiping and sacrificing to other gods. They have rebelled against the LORD and have delved deep into sins.

You know how you’re in trouble when your mom says, Jason Michael Evans, so too the LORD calls out here, Ephraim and Israel. Ephraim being the largest tribe in the northern ten tribes and from whom most if not all its rulers come from is equated to the whole of the tribes. The worship of other gods involved temple prostitution. As they all are worshiping these demons with sexual immorality they have made themselves unclean. The worship of other gods also leads to all other sinful behavior as Paul says in Rom. 1, “²⁹Their lives are full of all kinds of wrongdoing, wickedness, greed, malice. They are full of envy, murder, quarreling, treachery, viciousness. They gossip and slander. ³⁰They hate God. They are insulting, proud, boasting. They invent new evils. They disobey parents. ³¹They are foolish. They break their promises. They have no love or mercy. ³²Knowing God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve when others do them.” Are we not there now in our own present society with the churches approving divorce and remarriage without repentance, greed, divisiveness, homosexuality and not calling to repentance those who live together?

So Israel’s sins will be held against them and their leading Judah into sin (cf. Matt. 18:6,7).These people came to offer sacrifices to the LORD but He would hear them because their faith was not in Him but their false gods and the false worship of their lives. We should pay attention here? Do we oppose the pastor, give him grief and call him unloving when he calls people to repentance. Have you silenced him? Do we approve of the wickedness of our family and friends? Do we trusty anyone or anything other than the LORD Jesus Christ for any good thing? Is our worship on Sunday morning from the heart or so people like us and think well of us but we really aren’t committed to the LORD and then get angry when He doesn’t answer our vending machine prayers?

Heavenly Father, grant us true repentance and a true worshipful life that trusts You in all things so we turn away from all other crutches and supports in our lives that lead us away from You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.