ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’”

“Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts. Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst. I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery. Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’ Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’ She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold—which they used for Baal.”

“Therefore I will take away My grain when it ripens, and My new wine when it is ready. I will take back My wool and My linen, intended to cover her naked body. So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of My hands. I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals. I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but Me she forgot,” declares the Lord.

Hosea 2:1-13

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The people of God had tested His patience over and over again. They had consistently and persistently sinned against Him, opting to worship pagan gods and idols in direct violation of His commands. And yet God tried to do everything that He could to try and get them to repent and turn back toward Him, sending a number of prophets with warnings of God’s coming judgment if they failed to turn from their wicked ways.

Unfortunately, the Israelites ignored all the cautions and alerts, seemingly daring God to carry out what He had threatened to do. And so God did what He had to do to get His people’s attention.

Enough was enough.

What were some of the things God intended to do to His people?

We find a brief illustration in the opening verses of Hosea, Chapter 2. Look again at those words here:

“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’”

“Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts. Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst. I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery. Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’ Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’ She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold—which they used for Baal.”

“Therefore I will take away My grain when it ripens, and My new wine when it is ready. I will take back My wool and My linen, intended to cover her naked body. So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of My hands. I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals. I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but Me she forgot,” declares the Lord.  Hosea 2:1-13

First, the call was for a rebuke as the Israelites were not behaving in a way that would show them they were even associated with God. There was no relationship anymore because the people of God were no longer betrothed to Him but the idols they chose to worship. It was their idolatrous attitude that led to God’s ire and His threat to do the following, threats He would later carry out in judgment:

1. He would expose their sins and wickedness.

“Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts. Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born.”

“So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of My hands.”

2. He would leave them desolate.

“I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst.”

“I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them.”

3. He would spare no one from His consequences, even the Israelite children.

“I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery. Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace.”

4. He would isolate them.

“She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’ Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’”

5. He would remove the things He blessed them with, things they used for sinful purposes.

“She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold—which they used for Baal. Therefore I will take away My grain when it ripens, and My new wine when it is ready. I will take back My wool and My linen, intended to cover her naked body.”

6. He would put a stop to all their festivities.

“I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.”

7. He would specifically punish them for abandoning Him.

“I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but Me she forgot,” declares the Lord.

From His words, God is trying to send the Israelites (and us today) a very specific message.

For God will never accommodate sin. Ever. But what He will do is never cease to do whatever it takes to eradicate sin and this is one thing you can always be sure of.

To that end, the Lord would like nothing more than for His people to recognize their own transgressions and repent of them, asking for forgiveness and turning back to their Lord without coercion.

But when they don’t, when they continue to disregard and disrespect Him through their actions, then He will take action and do so in a way that will bring hardship and difficulty to the sinners.

Indeed, God is a patient God but He has His limits. Let’s all ensure we don’t allow things to get to a point of no return like the Israelites did, a point where God simply says, “Enough is enough.”

Amen

In Christ,

Mark
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