Dei Time

Justice and Mercy

Joel 2:1 – 32

Some say that in chapter 2, Joel begins to blend the reality of the locust plague with the image of approaching armies. Others say that chapter 2 still refers to the literal locust invasion, but emphasizes that it is a part of the Lord's judgment on His people. Either way, Joel's message is a warning to repent and return to God's protection. The picture is obvious: there is nothing that can stand in the way of the coming hoard—except God. Verse 13 effectively expresses the problem of Israel's false piety, "…rend your heart and not your garments." How often do we "go through the motions" as Christians? Do we really think about our worship, or is our mind elsewhere? Do we live our faith, or just profess it?

In verses 18-27 God promises restoration. The spiritual promise was fulfilled in the coming of Christ. Some say that it was historically fulfilled when the Jews returned to Jerusalem from Babylon (though not as glorious as described), or partly fulfilled at that time and will be completed in the last days. The latter seems to fit God's promise most accurately.

What does God expect of us today? Does He expect America to be His ambassadors among the nations? Does He want us to use our wealth and power outside of our borders or to better care for our own people, or both?

As you consider whether God still has particular expectations of nations that He has blessed, try not to think politically. God does not think in terms of Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green Party, etc. Individual members of the early church played major roles in changing community life. Christians, for instance, were among the few to care for plague victims in the early years of the church. What do you think our role is? What roles do you think God sets out for us? Are there non-governmental care groups that you might work with? It might be an interesting topic for a small group gathering.

Verses 28 and 29 were fulfilled, according to Acts 2:17, on the day of Pentecost.

Verses 30-32 are very similar to Jesus' teaching on the days before His second coming (Mark 13; Luke 21). St. John also uses these images in Revelation. Unlike the books and movie on the supposed year of destruction, 2012, God's word is clear that when this world comes to a close, and that time is unknown, the believer has no need to fear.

Here Come the Locusts

Joel 1:1 – 20

Joel was a prophet about the time of Hosea and Amos. He most likely lived in the area of Jerusalem. When his words were recorded is arguable, since he supplies no specific information by which to establish a date. You may see very early dates or very late dates listed as probable, depending on the study Bible you are using. Very late dates are doubtful, however. Joel's message to us remains the same regardless of when it was written. His ministry was most likely right around the time of Jerusalem's fall, when Jeremiah also was ministering to the people.

Most agree that the locust plague in Judah was real, not just imagery to describe the invading armies from Assyria or Babylon. What did the people see as the locusts infested the land? That is a question that can be answered accurately because locust plagues continued in African nations and the Holy Land into modern times. The New Bible Commentary gathered and printed the following material ("Most…taken from World Vision, Dec. 1986-Jan. 1987.")

One swarm can contain up to ten billion individual locusts. As many as a thousand newly hatched hopping locusts can occupy one square foot. A single locust can travel 3,000 miles during its lifetime, stripping vegetation wherever it and its swarm land. A swarm can devour in one day what 40,000 people eat in one year. In a 1958 visitation Ethiopia lost 167,000 metric tons of grain, enough to feed more than a million people for a year.

Since the mid-1980s the plagues have diminished with the use of preventative treatments.

Chapter one also indicates that there was a drought in Judah at the same time. What the locusts did not eat was destroyed by drought. The prophet calls on the people to recognize that the double disaster is directly related to their unfaithfulness to God, and their need to repent (vs.13).

This message should not have come as a surprise. For years God's prophets had been warning Judah that the disasters destroying their nation were directed by Him because of their open and unrepentant rebellion. However, not all natural disasters are punishments from God. While anyone avoiding a disaster such as a tornado or drought should thank God for being spared, the idea that those who did not avoid disaster were being punished.

Turning to God

Hosea 14:1 - 9 

The prophet pleads with the people to pray to God. Only God can enable them to come to Him with praise! They must ask Him to receive them with grace "… [so] that we may offer the fruit of our lips." Praising God and declaring His rule over them would not erase their sin. Their only hope lay in the only one able to save them from their sin against God, and that One was God.

How hard it is for the world today, including our own culture, to plead with God; to ask His forgiveness and trust in His power and grace. We do the opposite. Like Israel, we turn to other gods. We trust in political alliances. We rely on "political correctness" to guarantee peace. We make our own laws concerning how we treat one another—laws based on threats and punishment while God's laws are based in His love for us and His inspired love in us for one another. That we trust in the power of our personal financial security too much, was demonstrated when our country's economy hit the bucket last year. Instead of trusting in God to provide, millions of us began to panic and fall into depression—yes, even Christians. The world demands that all gods are equal—just as did Israel when they attempted to include the idols of the world in their worship of the true God. Even in this, many Christians are guilty, insisting that their faith is only one of many ways to God.

In the time of the very early Church, Christians turned the world upside down by their actions of love and witness. We could do the same, if our fears did not overpower our faith in God.

Today's reading is the last of the recorded words of Hosea. His prophetic utterances end with the hope and assurance that God will answer Israel one day and deliver them from evil and back into His arms. They will see restoration and reunion with Him.

Warnings Ignored

Hosea 13:1 - 16  

Not only did Israel pursue idols, they did it well. The gold and silver craftsmen made beautiful idols, lovingly preparing them for worship. Their attention to the craft consumed their awareness of any other path. How often this is true today! Men and women are so consumed with creating their various idols, whether relationships, money, jobs, sports, homes, charities, the perfect body, or a myriad of other projects, that they lose the awareness of the closeness of God and His love for them. Some will even admit that there just isn't room for God in their busy idol-making activity. Yet, God says in verse 4, "there is no savior besides Me." (NASB) The people of Israel were about to lose everything that they had worked so hard to attain because they had forgotten about the One who had given it all to them.

Part of verse 14 may sound familiar, "Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?" In Hosea's time, the words were a call for the wrath of God. His justice demanded the punishment of sin, but because God sent Jesus to be the final payment for sin, St. Paul could quote Hosea in a different way. In referring to Jesus' gift to us of forgiveness by His death on the cross, Paul also said, "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"(I Corinthians 15:55) The consequence of sin in Israel was death but their final freedom from guilt, like ours, came through the death of Christ 700 years later.

Through Hosea God then predicts that the nation of destruction will come from the east (Assyria). Israel, or Ephraim, may feel comfortable, but there will be great destruction.

Verse 16 is gory and we are repelled by the scene described. However, it accurately describes the warfare of the time, and especially the cruelty of Assyria. That nation was feared not only because of its power, but because of its extreme brutality.

(Note: The Hebrew of the first part of verse 14 should be translated as two rhetorical questions, not as statements. This is confirmed by heeding the grammar of the words and also by God's closing statement, "I will have no compassion." I mention this because some translations incorrectly translate the beginning of verse 14.)

 

 

    

Is Today Any Different?

Hosea 12:1-14

Political alliances were part of the rebellion of Ephraim and of Judah. They turned from the righteousness of God to "practical" alliances with God's enemies; with nations that worshiped idols and practiced abominations in the sight of God. These errors continued even as they continued to defy God in their own dealings with one another. Does this relate to today? It is a question that we face throughout the writings of the prophets.

Dealings among God's people sound so familiar to us. We cheat one another; we steal from one another; we hate one another and ignore the needy among us. We try to get the homeless out of sight instead of figuring out a way to encourage them and empower them to change. In the area of world politics we ignore outrageous human degradation and persecution in order to maintain politically correct and financially profitable alliances. We are so much like the Old Testament people who snubbed their noses at God in order to pursue their own godhood.

So the question continues to intrude on our peace of mind—does God think of nations in a different way today? Today is His only concern for the spiritual life of the individual? Or, does He still judge the nations, especially those nations that have rejected His love and care after acknowledging it for a couple of centuries.

I don't know the answer, but I have my thoughts. We withhold food from nations that are starving because of political reasons or because the profits would be too small. We hoard our personal wealth in order to buy more "stuff" while our neighbor loses his home because he has no job. Our culture demands unlimited abortion for really questionable reasons: unready to be a parent; adoption would make me feel guilty; my career would suffer; I already have enough children; I can't afford children, etc. Claiming that Jesus is the only road to God is condemned as exclusiveness, hatred, intolerance. I could go on, but you get my point. My personal question concerns whether God could ignore such practices without acting. What do you think? Does the fact that God's people no longer live under a theocracy negate His action among the nations? Does God stop "interfering" in the affairs of men because we tell Him to?

God Loves His Children

Hosea 11:1 - 12

God refuses to give up His people forever. He begins this chapter stating that He rescued them from slavery in Egypt, but then they persisted in pursuing other gods. Here is God as a loving Father expressing His love for a rebellious child. Verse 4 expresses what real parental love is. What ties people to their children? Some would say duty, or blood, or responsibility, but God says that it is kindness and love. In human relationships there are frequently examples where that isn't true, but it is what God intends. We are tied to our children out of an unexplainable love for the little trouble-makers. They pull at the "cords" constantly, thinking that they are hindrances when in reality they are made up of the strands of concern, protection, a desire to teach, and a desire to be the friend and advisor to our children who will never fail them. It really is a good picture of God and His people as well as our children and us.

Then in verse 5 God says that He has done all that He can to convince His children of His love, but they insist on going their own way, and it can destroy them.

If not for His unexplainable love, God would have sent lightning and fire into the midst of this rebellious nation. Their rebellion, after all, was not a new thing.

How often does our temper flare at the child who constantly disobeys? How often are we hurt when the child accuses us of hatred or stomps from the room? How often do they just KNOW that we are wrong and they are right? In how many families has tragedy resulted from young pride and disobedience?

If you take all of these things and multiply them into national and even world-wide proportions, you can almost get a feeling of God's pain and frustration over His people. But it is still greater than we can imagine because God's love is perfect, something that no human parent can claim.

He knew what tragedy awaited His disobedient people; He knew that Satan was determined to destroy God's people, and that they seemed willing. But, whatever it took to keep His children for His own, He was willing to make happen; even if it meant sending His own Son to pay for their sin.

Are We Cows Who Only Love Pulling the Thresher?

Hosea 10:1-15

Chapter 10 begins with the word that the richer the nation becomes the faster rebellion grows. In the New Testament, Jesus spoke of the difficulty that a rich man has entering the kingdom of heaven. The riches are not sinful, nor do they keep him from God's mercy. His sins are greed and self-reliance; his fear is, "What if I lose something by following Jesus?"

Both the northern and southern kingdoms were very good at worshipping God when the enemy was pouring over the city wall. Then God was welcomed with knees to the ground and faces upraised in tearful praise, but as times improved, self-confidence and greed always returned.

As disaster nears, Israel begins to see the truth (vs.3). The people who had demanded that God give them a king so that they could be like other nations now moan that a king cannot help them because they have turned from God. Their idols will be taken away, and the nation that called Samaria its capitol will become a wilderness.

In verses 11-12, the prophet compares Israel to a cow. Why would a cow enjoy pulling a dredge over grain to husk it? Actually, it was a pleasant task for the animal. Their great bulk had little trouble pulling the load and God's law said that the owner could not muzzle them while doing their job. That meant that they could munch all day on the grain before them, without thought of responsibility. God says that a plowing yoke, involving a much more difficult task, will replace the thresher.

Judah to the south is included in the warning. They must plow and plant righteousness if they are to avoid God's anger.

Meanwhile, the prophet returns to his warning to Israel. They are self-deceived and self-reliant, which will lead to their downfall.

We can do little to speak directly to our whole nation about the importance of heeding God. However, we can make a difference one-on-one. We can continually act in the love of Christ; encourage our neighbors to return to the morality taught by God; and to depend on Jesus for salvation. What good could that do for our nation's current moral malaise? Remember the words by those who did not want God's love to succeed in changing the world as recorded in Acts. They say of Christians, "These men who have caused trouble all over the world!" Christians witnessing one-on-one changed everything.

 

I Feel Like a Frog in Warming Water

Hosea 9:1 - 17

Chapter 9 describes the turmoil in Israel that is consuming everyone from the man on the street to the priests. He makes it clear that His judgment against His own people is just. He wants to judge them holy, but cannot because of their reckless and deliberate sin and rebellion.

Verses 7 through 9 say that, "Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac. ^8 The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, yet snares await him on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his God. ^9 They have sunk deep into corruption,…"

O my goodness. How much more relevant could the Old Testament get than these verses? Christians today are considered by many to be either fools or maniacs. The world seems to deliberately place traps in their paths with the "you should not have" incidents around the country. "You should not have": invited a coworker to your church; laid your Bible in plain sight on your desk; peacefully demonstrated at an abortion clinic; wrote a paper for school on Jesus as your most admired hero; told someone that salvation comes only through Jesus. Even some Christian leaders have fallen to the temptation to adjust their words so as not to offend the world's sensibilities.

How many Christians today have also joined ancient Israel in their pursuit of idols? Our idols are not made of stone, but of steel, electronics, investments, power, prestige, and our position compared to our neighbors'.

How do we answer our culture, and even some of our Christian brothers and sisters? We answer with love. No, not the love that says we approve of the disastrous changes in our country's moral center, but the love that says we care enough about the people around us to speak out.

Too many of us are speaking by our silence. We grant de facto approval to the sin going on around us by remaining silent. Is the fear of being labeled as a Christian fanatic worth allowing sin to be promoted on television, in books, in movies, sometimes on the news, and even in the courts, without refutation? The Holy Spirit lives in us. He has the power to work through us, but we have to be willing participants. Through us He can show a world that is convinced that we are judgmental jerks that Jesus really does love the sinner but hate the sin.

Tolerance Draws to a Close

Hosea 6:7 - 8:14  

What does God expect of a nation? As chapter six draws to a close God cites the violence in Israel—not the violence of war against an enemy, but violence of His people against one another. He has told them in verse six that mercy is more important than their insincere sacrifices, yet they continue to do evil to one another. How many times have you been disappointed by someone that you trusted? How much violence do we see in our own nation? How often do Americans cheat one another in order to up the profits? The big I in sIn is alive and well even here, in the most free and wealthy nation of the world. In the time of Hosea even Judah—the nation that had birthed King David would fall into the same kinds of sin and rebellion. (vs.11)

Chapter seven continues God's description of His people in the midst of revolt against Him. The description of the baking bread was obvious to Hosea's listeners. Most of us no longer bake bread on stone, but verse eight describes a bread cake left to cook without turning. Soon becomes burned on one side and white and hard on the other—useless.

Beginning in verse eight He reveals their pursuit of foreign allies instead of their God. These allies will "sap his [Israel's] strength, but he does not realize it. His hair is sprinkled with gray, but he does not notice. Israel's arrogance testifies against him, but despite all this he does not return to the Lord his God or search for him." God's words were true. Over a period of only twenty years, 752-732 B.C., those seeking power assassinated four kings in Israel.

When Israel flies to her political allies for protection, God will bring them down and destroy their evil rebellion (vs.11-13). In verse 14, the people come to worship and sacrifice so that they will receive the gift of good crops, but with no heart for God.

Readers and listeners in Judah would have reacted differently than those in Ephraim/Israel. They probably nodded and smiled in agreement at the attack of words on their brothers to the north, but verse 14 undoubtedly cleared the smiles away. Judah was committing the same sins against God.

Hot on the Road to Destruction

Hosea 5:1-6:6

Chapter 5 begins with God's pronouncement to the leaders and the royalty of Israel. Mizpah and Tabor were places of false worship in Israel that had been established and encouraged by the leaders who were to keep the people from wandering from their God. They have become depraved (vs.2 NASB).

All of God's people have stumbled, even those in Judah to the south, where David's family continued to reign. God will withdraw His protection from them and their enemies will wreak havoc. Verse 13 indicates that both kingdoms, in the midst of danger, will still not turn to God, but will try to align themselves with other nations for protection. As chapter 5 ends it is clear that the nations will have to suffer complete devastation before they will come to their senses and turn to God for rescue.

Chapter 6 begins with the words that Israel will come to believe and to profess—this may be the prophet speaking to them (vs.1-3).

In verse 6, and throughout the prophets, we are often reminded that God does not seek specific liturgical styles or traditions as our primary worship. When we attend worship, but let our minds wander to the events of later in the day, we miss the point of worship. God says that, "I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." While He approves our worship practices, if our hearts are not devoted to Him, then our worship practices are worthless. When we speak the words of worship, do we hear and understand their meaning? Do we understand that we belong to God, and He is to be first in our hearts?