"Ripped from the Headlines"

I don't know why it even surprises me anymore! I have been reading  the Bible, literally all my life, and I have to admit that at age sixty-nine, I don't expect to be surprised when I read it. I have said in a couple of my more recent blogs how I was surprised that when I read both Jeremiah and Isaiah I found an amazing degree of relevance in the situation  the prophets were addressing in ancient Israel, and what we are experiencing in our world today.

I can't help but make the same observation in my recent reading of the prophet, Hosea. Here is my first installment:

" . . . the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land, because there is no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land. There is swearing, deception, murder, stealing and adultery. They employ violence, so that bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore everyone who lives in it languishes . .  "       Hosea 4:1-3 (NASB)

It is as a popular TV show likes to say: "ripped from the headlines!"

There is, just as it says, no faithfulness or kindness, and there is particularly no knowledge of God in our land today. The unbelievers don't care about God, the liberal believers ignore God's word, and remake him in their own image, and the so-called Evangelicals are not much better as they are just plain ignorant of His word.          

I don't think that anyone can dispute that all the things mentioned in the catalogue of sins in the next sentences are a part of our everyday lives in our nation today.  

The word that is translated "languishes" presents  a particularly interesting thought. Strong's concordance lists it as a Hebrew word which he says means  "to be sick, to mourn, be weak . . . " I don't know about you, but I am just sick when I look at the direction our country is going morally, and I mourn over what we are becoming as we turn our backs on God's standards and substitute our own "what's in it for me" approach.

The larger problem that I am seeing here is that this passage says that the "land languishes." That is, the whole country, not to mention the whole remainder of the world, is suffering, and will suffer for all of this, not just the ones who are practicing the evil, but even those of us who are rejecting the direction that this is all going.

I would re-direct you to my post of 6/30/2015, "Repentance in an Unrepentant World", and would reiterate that there has never been a time in my lifetime that Christians need to distance themselves from the world around us, and openly take a stand against the morality of our times. Additionally, we need to be prepared for the consequences of the world's actions and to do whatever we can to insulate ourselves from these consequences of sin as our nation and our world languishes.

Once again, I find myself not being very specific. I suspect that the many different situations of our lives will necessitate different approaches appropriate to different circumstances. God knows what we are each facing. He will direct our paths when we turn to Him and subject ourselves to His guidance. After all, this is the whole point of the Christian walk.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6). Pray for the peace of America.

Thanks for sharing this moment with me today.