SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/22/2015
10:03 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Nation’s True Condition PT-3
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Hosea 7:8
Message of the
verse: “8"Ephraim mingles with
the pagans, dissipating himself. Ephraim is half-baked (Message).” “8 Ephraim mixes himself with the nations;
Ephraim has become a cake not turned.”
Dr. Wiersbe calls this simile “that of a half-baked cake,”
and that is why I used the Message. He
explains “The nomadic peoples of the East baked their bread on hot rocks. If the dough wasn’t turned, one side of the
loaf would be burned and the other side uncooked. Instead of remaining separate from the nations,
Israel mixed with the nations and became like them. Because of her compromising political
posture, the nation was ‘burned’ by Assyria on the one hand and left uncooked
on the other.”
This is a good lesson for believers today as believers
must be totally committed to the Lord and not just half committed to Him. In the age we live in that is difficult to
say the least, but we need to continue to strive to accomplish this full commitment
to the Lord through our hearts, minds, and also strength being fully committed
to the Lord. We can do this by the study
of His Word, through the listening to sermons, and to be active in a good Bible
believing Church
We will look at the next simile which comes from verses
9-10 and this one also speaks of compromise as we see in these verses a man
getting gray, but not realizing it. “9
Strangers devour his strength, Yet he does not know it; Gray hairs also are sprinkled on him, Yet he does not know it. 10
Though the pride of Israel testifies against him, Yet they have not returned to the LORD their God,
Nor have they sought Him, for all this.”
We have been speaking of Israel mixing with the nations
and not being a separate nation like God called them to be. This goes along with the story of the frog in
the kettle. If you put a frog in a hot
kettle of water the frog will not want to stay there and jump out, however if
you put the frog in a kettle of warm water and slowly make it hotter the frog
will stay there and be cooked without even knowing it. This is compromise that Israel had by slowly
mixing with the nations and all of a sudden when you look back you have become
just like them. We have examples of this
in the Old Testament in the person of Samson as seen in Judges 16:20 which
reads “She said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" And he awoke
from his sleep and said, "I will go out as at other times and shake myself
free." But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.” This verse shows that it was too late for Samson. We have been studying the book of Revelation
since the beginning of this year and have seen that one of the churches, the
Church of Laodicea was a compromising church “’Because you say, "I am
rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not
know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked (Rev.
3:17).” In our verse for this simile we
see that Israel had a lot of pride (verse 10), and this pride in themselves
caused the Lord to turn His back on them.
There are lessons we can learn from these three verses. Believers need to be separate from the world
system, and trust in the Lord and not in themselves as this is being prideful.
6/22/2015 10:24 PM
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