Wife of Whoredom Part 7 "Don't Die Dumb" - Hosea Ch. 7 Ep#109

Wife of Whoredom Part Seven Don’t Die Dumb Ep. #109 Hosea Ch 7

Welcome to another episode of Bible Shorts With Biblebob. We’ve been having a blast studying the Minor Prophet Hosea. If you’re just joining us, I’ll give you a quick overview of where we’ve been, but I encourage you to check out the first six episodes in this series. Hosea was told by God to marry a wife who would cheat on him. It’s a true story and metaphor of the way Israel (and sometimes us) was committing spiritual adultery. Hosea is the bridegroom as is Christ and we are the bride of Christ.

This is a story of common people like you and I who often forget God’s goodness, grace, mercy and forgiveness Hosea our Minor Prophet continues delivering God’s disapproving message directed at the Israelites. In our last episode we saw a nation whose lips may have spoken about God, but their hearts were empty. They continued in their ways of whoredom with false gods. They were experts at showing fake-regret. They were hypocrites who wanted to get out of a bad place, but refused to do good and surrender totally to God to make it happen. God starts calling them out on their hypocrisy. Here in Chapter Seven the calling out by God intensifies.

Through Hosea, God masterfully paints a picture depicting His memory of Israel’s wickedness. Let’s dive into God’s memory and see what He remembers starting with verse one in the Good News Translation.

“Whenever I want to heal my people Israel and make them prosperous again, all I can see is their wickedness and the evil they do. They cheat one another; they break into houses and steal; they rob people in the streets. It never enters their heads that I will remember all this evil; but their sins surround them, and I cannot avoid seeing them.” The Lord says, “People deceive the king and his officers by their evil plots. They are all treacherous and disloyal. Their hatred smolders like the fire in an oven, which is not stirred by the baker until the dough is ready to bake. On the day of the king's celebration they made the king and his officials drunk and foolish with wine. Yes, they burned like an oven with their plotting. All night their anger smoldered, and in the morning it burst into flames. “In the heat of their anger they murdered their rulers.

Their kings have been assassinated one after another, but no one prays to me for help.” The Lord says, “The people of Israel are like a half-baked loaf of bread. They rely on the nations around them and do not realize that this reliance on foreigners has robbed them of their strength. Their days are numbered, but they don't even know it. The arrogance of the people of Israel cries out against them. In spite of everything that has happened, they have not returned to me, the Lord their God. Israel flits around like a silly pigeon; first her people call on Egypt for help, and then they run to Assyria! But I will spread out a net and catch them like birds as they go by. I will punish them for the evil they have done. “They are doomed! They have left me and rebelled against me. They will be destroyed. I wanted to save them, but their worship of me was false.

They have not prayed to me sincerely, but instead they throw themselves down and wail as the heathen do. When they pray for grain and wine, they gash themselves like pagans. What rebels they are! Even though I was the one who brought them up and made them strong, they plotted against me. They keep on turning away from me to a god that is powerless. They are as unreliable as a crooked bow. Because their leaders talk arrogantly, they will die a violent death, and the Egyptians will laugh.” GNT 16-1:7 Hosea

It would be easy to look at a sinful nation and say, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.” The problem is, some folks know exactly what they’re doing and they just don’t care. So you have two types of people, the “don’t-knowers” and the “do-knowers.” Add to that a third type we’ll call the “lukewarmers.” They’re the folks who sit on the sidelines, see evil and look the other way. You might think that sounds good, but the Bible says otherwise. If you know someone is doing wrong and you don’t warn them, God will hold your silence accountable.

Let me quote from Ezekiel who was one of the Major Prophets, “When I say to an evil person, ‘You will surely die,’ you must warn him. If you don’t speak out to warn the evil person to leave his evil way, he will die in his sin. But I will hold you responsible for his death.” Ezekiel 3 : 18 ICB

People will rationalize wrong behavior in all kinds of ways. They’ll say things like, “we’ve evolved into a new understanding of the Bible.” The Bible is the living Word of God, here’s what the Word says in 2 Timothy 3:16, “Every Scripture is God-breathed (given by His inspiration) and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience, [and] for training in righteousness (in holy living, in conformity to God's will in thought, purpose, and action),” AMPC 2 Timothy 3 : 16

Israel saw their problem, but refused to acknowledge the nature of their problem. They moaned about the effect without identifying the cause. In reality the cause always comes before the effect, but the Israelites chose to wallow in the effect without identifying the cause. When you have a problem that you could have prevented and you live a miserable life with the problem, you’re dumb.

One of my prayers, that I usually pray when I’m out hiking on or near a cliff, sounds like this, “God please don’t let me die doing something dumb.” The Israelites were being dumb and they were imprinting their dumbness in the memory of God. Folks that’s a dumb thing to do, please don’t die dumb – honor God with your whole heart. Just sayin….. Thanks for your time. Go do something nice for somebody. Jesus loves you and so do we.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DYdtHGzRt/