Hosea 7
Bible Passage: Hosea 7
This chapter talks about God’s desire to heal Israel, however prevented by Israel’s continual sin and adultery.
“They do not consider in their hearts
That I remember all their wickedness;
Now their own deeds have surrounded them;
They are before My face.” (verse 2)
Sometimes I commit a wrong against God, I feel bad about it and then I pray to God about it. After confessing my sin, I get up from prayer feeling a little bit better, and continue my life… and when I come upon a reminder of my sin, I ask myself… how do I know if God has forgiven me?
I think it is the consistent message in the Bible that God is ever ready to forgive our sins… The question is, are we going to depart from our sins permanently? From the history of Israel, we can see that they are punished mainly because they keep on sinning against God, repeatedly… continually… they were unrepentant and they get worse and worse without even knowing their own atrocities.
The scary part about us human beings is… we are very good at deceiving our own hearts, so that we fall without knowing the reason for falling sometimes. I believe this is the case with Samson, and also with King David. We become numb to our sinful thoughts and our repeated sins and think that by coming to church every week we maintain our righteousness before God. However God remembers; God knows all our wickedness, whether we repeatedly fall back into sin, or deceive ourselves in our hearts. Sometimes I think we forgive ourselves too easily, and assume that God will be merciful to us as much as we want to forgive ourselves. It is scary when we lose our consciousness to sin and feeling of guilt towards God, like Ephraim (Israel), having aliens devoured his strength, yet does not know it, having gray hairs here and there and yet he does not know it. (verses 8,9)
What’s interesting to me in this chapter is also the multiple mention of the oven (verses 4,6,7). I am learning to cook recently and one of the things I am learning to use is the oven. What I like about the oven is that it seems I can just make all the preparations, put the prepared ingredients in the oven, and walk away for a period of time, and come back with the food done. However, we must check the food from time to time to make sure that it is cooking properly, and it will be a disaster if the food gets overcooked or burnt.
It is clear from the verses that the baker is not watchful over his oven.
“He ceases stirring the fire after kneading the dough, until it is leavened.” (v.4)
“Their baker sleeps all night; in the morning it burns like a flaming fire.” (v.6)
At least for the modern oven it is possible to set timer to prevent over cooking beyond the certain time. I can’t imagine how black the oven will be when left heating up the whole night!
Ephraim is also described as a silly dove, seeking help from other nations instead of the Most High, who is God. Finally, Ephraim is also described as a treacherous bow – a dangerous weapon that cannot aim properly.
Indeed it is dangerous for our spiritual lives when we constantly seek help from other sources far away from God. These verses tell us that if we live our lives without aim (of the heavenly prize), we will never lead a meaningful life and we can never reach our ultimate target.
Let us not be a silly dove, but be watchful bakers over our sacrifices, that they may be pleasant to God.