LAYING ARROGANCE ASIDE
Hosea 8: 1-14
PREPARED BY
KEN GEHRELS
PASTOR
CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH
NEPEAN, ONTARIO
It's something most parents don't think about when a child is born. They're simply pleased to be able to have this little one home, healthy, dependant in the basinette. But about 18 months later it begins to appear. The first word baby learns - "NO". And the second word - "MINE".
The independent streak has arrived. Baby has decided that it is not going to simply do things mommy's way. It has a will and a temper, and is determined to use it!
Over time that streak of "I'm going to do things my way" moderates - at least with most people. They learn to balance dependance on others, with a healthy measure of freedom and ability to go it alone. The trick is learning where dependance and independence each have their place. If you don't, you become either a drain on others - shackled to the opinions and handouts of others.
OR
You become seen as an aloof, arrogant sort who thinks they have the world by the tail. And neither is right. Neither is the way God designed us to be, to live, to grow and mature.
I think we have to admit that none of us get it all right. We all could use some development in moderating away from arrogant self-reliance, or being freed up from an unhealthy dependance.
Tonight we want to consider the former - arrogant self-reliance. Particularly in our relationship with our Creator, our Heavenly Father. And doing that as we prepare to spend a rather significant time in prayer. Let me take you now to Hosea 8 for some rather stern words from our Father - words to an arrogant, rebellious child; a child who has decided that the word, "MINE" is the best word around.
Read these words with me. And while you do have that short phrase from Psalm 127 echoing in your mind -- "Unless the Lord builds the house... or stands guard over the city.... those who do it, do it in vain."
Hosea 8: 1-14
To an arrogant, God-forsaking nation comes the cry - "Sound the trumpet. Wake up people. An eagle is over your house."
Other translations use "vulture" instead of "eagle". Either way the point is ominous. Destruction is coming to those who think they have things so well in hand on their own.
Far from it!
Israel responds back in v.2:"What do you mean? We acknowledge the Lord. We're believers. What's the problem?" And God's reply deflates their protest in a second.
Verse 4 begins that reply, showing their misplaced national
arrogance for what it truly was.
Notice the first two lines in v.4 - each begins with the word "they".
That word is given special emphasis in the Hebrew - as though it were underlined, italics, and bold print:
THEY set up kings....
THEY choose princes....
and later: THEY make idols.....
Be it politics, religion, diplomacy or defense:"they.... without my consent.... without my approval... for themselves...."
Puts visions in my mind of the so-called "Terrible Twos", or perhaps what happens with some adolescents, who in defiance ignore their parents and drift off to do their own thing - some with much explosion & noise; others with quiet arrogance, convinced that they know best and that their senile old parents will just have to "get a life".
The question for this evening is, of course, whether we find ourselves or our nation of Canada wandering down this same path that Israel walked.
Do we?Think about that as we consider some of the issues of Hosea 8.
Issue #1: "They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval."
Disastrous king-making, choosing favored leaders without so much as a hint of concern for what God might want: It's something you see in the Bible all over the place, from the brief and very bloody reign of Abimalech in Judges 9, all the way to the cry, "Not this man, but Barabas".
And THAT, brothers & sisters, is a cry echoed wherever the voice of the people drown out the voice of God; where we set up leaders and regimes supposedly answerable only to ourselves;
where we treat even the moral law as subject to the vote or to the climate of popular opinion; saying that what the majority wants is the right way to go, making that way the ruling way - the king.
Following hard on the heels of that, in the latter half of v.4 is the making of idols - Israel picking and choosing power sources for themselves. In their case it took the form of a calf-idol.
That choice goes all the way back to Mt.Sinai. It's a pernicious problem, even older than the king-making of the days of the judges. We see it repeated through Jereboam I who erected 2 golden calves for the breakaway kingdom of Israel.
Now, I don't know about you, but I found it hard to relate to the threat of calf-idols.... at least at first glance. Think a little deeper, though, and maybe it's NOT so far afield from us. See, the generally accepted calf-idol in ancient Palestine was a bull - symbol of raw power and sexual potency. These were two characteristics admired and sought after by pagan societies.
Judging by the sorts of stuff available and sitting at the top of the rating charts in video shops, you have to wonder how far behind them we are in chasing and lusting after power, sometimes raw, violent and extreme; and sexual potency.
Setting up our own authority independent of God.
Lusting after power and potency - the agressive drive for more.
- Put a trumpet to your lips. The vulture is circling overhead. Doom is near.
For in the end - how long can these things last? How much power, protection and care can they possibly give?
Where does a life free from willing submission to the Lord get one?
Listen to verse 7:
They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour.
Were it to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it up.
And with those words, doom is sounded for Israel. Their vulture will appear in the form of Assyria, swooping down to destroy them and pick the carcass clean.
The end result?v.13 "The Lord... will remember their wickedness and punish their sins; they will return to Egypt."Back to Egypt.
Israel will have come full circle.
They that were rescued in infancy from Egypt and raised to maturity in Canaan, the promised land, have thrown it all away. They have returned to the slavery from which they came; squandered their freedom.
So often you see this in civilizations. They begin with good intentions, develop and mature, but then decay and self-destruct.
- the Roman Empire did it.
- the Church of the Middle Ages, freed from persecution under Constantine, did it - decaying to terrible corruption within a few hundred years.
- Canada & USA......nations begun in freedom, begun by and large under a leadership that recognized the sovereign control of the Lord over life, over law.
How is it going for us?
Let's not allow ourselves as a nation to become complacent simply because of the existence of some steeples in the community, or because of a hand placed on a bible in a court of law, or the Divine Name mentioned in our national anthem.
These are not sufficient to wrestle a blessing from the Lord.
Over and over again the prophets make that clear. Worship, honour, acknowledgement of the Lord must be more than skin deep. It must go further than Sunday ritual. It has to be driven by more than lukewarm religiosity.
Amos 5.21 "I hate, I despise your religious feasts" declares the Lord.
Micah 6.6 "The Lord desires that you do justice, love mercy, and walk
humbly with your God."
Rev 3.16 "So, because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth".
Verse 14 summarizes it all again: "Israel has forgotten His Maker...."
The result is disaster.
Tonight is the chance for us to refocus - to retrain our hearts and minds on the Lord as it relates to ALL areas of life.
We will pause with a few select topics. Interspersed between them will a significant time for silence. Please make use of them to lay before the Lord not only those areas of concern we specifically list,but whatever God burdens your heart with.
For while we may sigh and groan about the general moral, social and spiritual nature of our nation, the buck
- finally -
stops with each of us.
And the question needs to be asked, "Have WE laid arrogance aside and bowed in total, conscious dependance before the Lord"
Tonight is a symbolic occasion where we can do precisely that.