Perfecting the ART of Chaos

Thursday, July 21, 2022

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.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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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^©  

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[1]  See Romans 3:23 and Isaiah 45:21

Stumbling in Broad Daylight

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

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.   Hosea 4:1-6a (NLT)

It’s hard to think about something that hits close to home; it’s harder to write about it.  And it’s the pits to preach about it! 

And this is one of those texts.

Hosea announces God’s case against Israel for worshiping falsely – being a spiritual harlot; they don’t live faithfully or kindly.  Among the charges are lying, stealing, adultery, and a general unfaithfulness to being God’s people.

That’s bad enough; but then Hosea blames it on the preachers who should be pointing the way to God – showing every human being who God is and how to serve him. 

Instead, the preachers are heaping the guilt of sin on people so the offerings keep coming in.  The people don’t know God, and the priests (preachers) are keeping them in darkness because it’s good for business.

Reads like today’s headlines, doesn’t it?

Hosea completes God’s indictment against his people by characterizing the whole nation as “drunk”.  They stumble in broad daylight, and the false prophets will sink with them into the dark-hole-morass of character-disintegration, and it’s all first-degree sin – no one else to blame for the punishment!  And God himself would pull the trigger.

Wow!  Just, WOW!

So…what do you do when you stand before a judge and the charges are piled-up like a stack of LEGOS, teetering back and forth; everything is at stake and the building of your life’s history is about to crumble like the Twin Towers? 

And Almighty God is the judge?

Well, if you’re smart you throw yourself open to a guilty plea, appeal to the mercy of the court and await the judge’s call.  But history teaches us God’s people weren’t like that too often. More than not they stoned the messengers – God’s prophets – and then suffered the judgment; not so smart!

These Days

We have the same track record unfolding in 21^st century America.  And we’re prone to responding just as dimly as Israel did so often in her history. 

I believe we have a short-sighted perspective on the dangerous path our country is following.  America has only been a nation for 238 years.  Israel’s history has been unfolding for more than 3,000 years.  We should learn the lesson of Scriptural holiness.

I also believe that nothing short of a sweeping flood of revival in American culture will keep us from suffering the same kind of stumbling in broad daylight Hosea predicted.

It was not pretty in Israel, and it will not be pretty in America.

For You, Today…

Pray for America, our leaders and its government to turn to righteousness.

Pray for the spiritual leaders of our churches; like the priests in Hosea’s day, today there’s a generation at stake who are blind, stumbling in the darkness of broad daylight.  And too many preachers are simply humming lullabies in pulpits, when we should be sounding the alarm.  

God forgive us.

We need God’s revival in the land…and it begins in our hearts…each of us.

A Deep Division of Opinion

Friday, September 5, 2014

Then they took the man who had been blind to the Pharisees, because it was on the Sabbath that Jesus had made the mud and healed him.  The Pharisees asked the man all about it.  So he told them, “He put the mud over my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see!”  Some of the Pharisees said, “This man Jesus is not from God, for he is working on the Sabbath.”  Others said, “But how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs?”  So there was a deep division of opinion among them.     John 9:13-16 (NLT)

A man, who in his entire life had never seen so much as his own thumbs, was given 20/20 sight by Jesus, and the first words out of the mouth of a religious bystander was criticism for Jesus.  There was no celebration that a blind man had been healed; there was only indignation that a miracle was performed on a holy day. 

It’s hard to miss the irony there.

Some of the Pharisees wanted to defend Jesus’ motives.  At least they recognized a miracle as being from God.  And so the skeptics and seers were off to the debate; divided again; a deep division between sides….again!

Divided Again

Among the things that never change are misunderstanding and division; these are as constant in human relationships as breathing in and out.

Calvinists and Arminians, Republicans and Democrats, Progressives and Conservatives, Georgia Bulldog and Crimson Tide fans – shall there ever be consensus?

Well, of course not!  We’re human beings; we divide ourselves into camps, dig our heels in the sand and debate how many angels can sit on the head of a pin, defending our “side” with the last drop of self-righteous blood in our bodies.

I’ve recently had to confess to the congregations I serve that I join the fight at times.  It’s rather obscene, really. 

I’m talking about Facebook™.  There are these Pharisee – er…Clergy Facebook pages.  

Someone always posts something politically left or right, or religiously progressive or conservative; the next thing you know there are snarky comments slinging-in from both sides.  

It can get pretty foul.

Nothing is ever settled; no one is ever happy; Christ is rarely glorified; and seldom is the blind man ever welcomed.  But we feel better for having vented our spleen in full view of the electronic world.  

We even do it on the Sabbath!

For You, Today…

If you’re a “Facebook-er” before you boot up that app, take a moment to ask God for the mind of Christ today.

Whatever conversation you join, make sure you’re holding the blind man’s hand.  Jesus is holding the Pharisee’s hand and wants to bring everybody back to the Father.

P.S.

It’s ok to heal on the Sabbath…Jesus said so!