Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel! The Lord has brought charges against you, saying: “There is no faithfulness, no kindness, no knowledge of God in your land. You make vows and break them; you kill and steal and commit adultery. There is violence everywhere—one murder after another. That is why your land is in mourning, and everyone is wasting away. Even the wild animals, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea are disappearing. “Don’t point your finger at someone else and try to pass the blame! My complaint, you priests, is with you. So you will stumble in broad daylight, and your false prophets will fall with you in the night. And I will destroy Israel, your mother. My people are being destroyed because they don’t know me. Since you priests refuse to know me, I refuse to recognize you as my priests. Since you have forgotten the laws of your God, I will forget to bless your children. The more priests there are, the more they sin against me. They have exchanged the glory of God for the shame of idols.
Hosea 4:1-7
There can be little denying the words of Hosea, written
nearly 2,800 years ago, which describe our generation in agonizingly accurate
detail. There is a lack of truth and
integrity, a prevalence of violence, one murder after another. Climate change is decimating entire species of
animals, and, as the prophet lamented over the people, everyone is
wasting away. And then, Hosea,
never a prophet of easy times or soft strokes, lays the blame right at the feet
of those who won’t tell the truth…false preachers in the business of business
as usual. The uncompromising
truth-teller bellows: Don’t try to
pass the blame!
There are Biblical texts that are hard to take, and this
is one of them. I wince each time Hosea
opens his mouth, because the ones he says God is going to hold accountable are
the false preachers. I have a commitment
to truth – Biblical truth, and personally sticking to telling the truth. However committed I am to truth, I’m not
always right, and sometimes convicted by not being brave enough to
speak-up. It would be untruthful to not
accept that mantle of falling short of God’s Glory[1]
Hosea’s most explosive bombardment is the accusation of
empty preaching, where priests (clergy) have refused to know God, and therefore
have nothing about God to tell the people who are disintegrating without any
connection to God. When you have access
to food, and refuse to share it with people who are starving, you’re guilty…there’s
no one else to blame.
End of story.
For You Today
If you’re a person who identifies as a
Jesus-follower, disciple, or simply a believer in God, you are also a preacher. We are like beggars who have found bread, and
bear a responsibility to tell other beggars where the stash is located. In the absence of truth-telling, chaos is
bound to reign.
There are about 2,000 devotional
posts on Rocky Road Devotions.
To
dig deeper into today’s topic or Scripture text: Stumbling in Broad Daylight
[1] Images: Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
[1] See Romans 3:23 and Isaiah 45:21
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