What is challenging your total committed and undivided heart?
Not only does it demand your allegiance it blinds you to the consequences of giving it.
We are going to read that as Assyria comes in to take the people God has firstly removed their king and then the altar which was a symbol of cleansing for many years but then taken over by idolatry is now condemned. The result is that God’s people will look to the hills and the mountains which in the past were symbols of God’s protection but now instead of repenting they will want to die holding on to their sin.
“Samaria’s king will be destroyed, swept away like a twig on the surface of the waters. The high places of wickedness will be destroyed—it is the sin of Israel. Thorns and thistles will grow up and cover their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!” (Hosea 8 v 7-8)
It is hard to imagine anyone preferring to hold on their own sinful way of life willing to suffer the consequences of doing so instead of repenting and losing that sin.
It is Samaria that is cut off, the capital, the central place for economy and business, the headquarters and the mother church, where all the pomp and ceremony is displayed. When God moves in judgment He starts at the top and works downwards.
These words in Hosea’s day are parallel to what we see from Luke’s gospel and then the Revelation.
As Jesus was nearing the cross, “Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then “‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’ (Luke 23 v 28-30)
Just as Hosea was looking to the shadow of Assyria descending on God’s people, Jesus had the Roman aggression on the city of Jerusalem in AD70 when death and destruction reigned bringing everything to the ground.
And the Revelation?
“Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” (Revelation 6 v 15-17)
Is the Revelation pointing to something of such a grand scale it is nuclear? Maybe. But the parallel teaching is the same whether in Hosea, Luke or the Revelation. And it is this.
When judgment falls will we be okay? Will we stand ready for what is next in sure and certain hope of our resurrection or will we be so consumed by idolatry that even though our world falls in on us we will still not repent. The world leaders that come toppling down whether Presidents, Prime Ministers or Priests often do so holding on to their lies that have consumed them. Very few apologise. Most do not repent.
Missions Paul 