Week of July 4

God’s Redemptive Fireworks

Read: 2 Kings 15-16; Hosea 1; Hebrews 1
 
“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the living God’”
Hosea 1:10, ESV

Introduction

Talk about an explosion! I am not pointing to a Fourth of July fireworks display, but I am referring to a spiritual eruption. Sometimes, God abruptly stops our current life direction with a bang. Like ancient Israel, we may be spiraling downward in a moral free-fall, so God intervenes in such a way as to call us to reach upward for His rescue! We too often use our freedom in ways that hurt us and those around us. God, however, preserves us, based upon His covenant with us. Let’s consider God’s call to genuine freedom today.

Let's See What the Bible Says

Hosea has been termed the “death-bed Prophet,” not because of his preaching style, but because he served the Lord during the last gasps of free air that Israel would take before Assyrian captivity began in 722 B.C. There had been a succession of wicked kings who had ruled over the corrupt nation, and God was calling an abrupt end to it. Oftentimes, loved ones will execute a surprise, dramatic intervention to prevent a drug addict or alcoholic from destroying his or her life. This moment in Israel’s history was God’s Divine intervention.

Our parallel passage in 2 Kings 15-16 opens to our view how low Israel had sunk morally during the years that Hosea served as a prophet. He served the Lord during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam in Israel (1:1). Hosea enters the scene and becomes God’s prophet of intervention. He gives witness to what God thought about Israel’s moral state.

He was instructed to marry an “adulterous wife,” who would give birth to “children of unfaithfulness” (1:2). God commands him to name them “Jezreel” (1:4; the name of the city where Jehu slaughtered the “house of Ahab”), “No mercy” (1:6), and “Not my people”( 1:9). These names and lives were to be walking and breathing testimonies of the future that was going to fall on his people. There would be no escape from judgment. Hosea would say, “If things look bad now, check your history to find how you arrived in this place, then look to the future!”

Their judgment involved three things. First, their military strength would be useless against their enemies (1:5, broken “bow”). Indeed, the Assyrians, under king Tiglath-Pileser III, seized the area in 733 B.C. Secondly, God would no longer “pursue Israel with favor” (1:6). The only reason that Israel had lasted this long was that God’s favor was upon them. No longer would this be the case. They would be violently carried away in judgment. And thirdly, Israel would no longer be His people. They had departed and pursued other gods, and He would fully disown them. I’d say that this was certainly moving from bad to worse. We’ve all been there in one way or another, haven’t we? Let’s seek to find some core principles that we may apply to our lives.

Let's Deepen Our Walk

I recall an “unforgettable” Fourth of July firework show years ago in Houston. Oh, I have witnessed spectacular ones in my lifetime, but this one stands out in my memory because of an unexpected explosion. My friends and I, along with countless others, had inched along in traffic to get to Memorial Park where the show was to take place. A great, festive crowd had gathered, and excitement was in the air. The event had been hyped for some time in the media, and the grand finale was advertised as being something like one that “you do not want to miss.”

There is extreme irony in those words. The end of the show came, the music swelled, and the switch was flipped on the long-awaited final display. My mind has framed that moment in slow motion through all of the decades since. There was much smoke, a flash, the firework began to shake violently, then it tipped over! I watched as the attendants began to flee in a desperate attempt to escape. The entire stage erupted in a massive explosion. That was a Fourth of July for the memoirs! Seriously, celebration quickly turned to desperation. Hold this thought as we will seek to apply the text to our own lives.

Let’s consider a thought for our spiritual growth. Sometimes, God’s people rebel against Him in horrible ways. Israel’s kings slaughtered pregnant women, offered child sacrifices, sold out and paid heavy tribute to foreign, godless nations, and even desecrated the temple (see 2 Kings 15:16, 19; 16:3; 10-13)! God’s people were not practicing godliness. We must be very careful how we apply the moral circumstances of that ancient theocracy to our contemporary democracy.

Nevertheless, God surely takes seriously the heart of a nation that claims to be Christian. He calls us out for our abuses of freedom: the mistreatment and abuse of women and children, our indebtedness to other nations that abuse human rights and persecute the church, and our own heavy taxation that oppresses the poor. However, the underlying principles of God’s mercy and forgiveness apply directly to His people in any age. We see that rights, justice, and life’s sanctity are core principles for every age! So, what are we to do?

Addicts and alcoholics will talk about hitting “rock bottom” before they began their recovery. The fact that they were standing there to give a testimony of recovery signaled to me that there was a way forward even after a bitter loss. We might call their testimonies “Verse 10 experiences” (see focal verses for today)!

Even though Israel (or you and I) failed bitterly and miserably and fell short entirely of God’s moral standards (Romans 3:23), the Bible says that the day will come when they (and we) would be called “sons of the living God” (see Hosea 1:10; cf. Romans 8:1). In other words, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” God has fulfilled His pledge to make Israel (the new Israel) as numerous as the sands on the seashore, and He has seen fit to include us (see Romans 9:26)! Praise the Lord for new life! The spiritual question is, “Is your use of freedom a cause for celebration or are you ripe for an unexpected explosion?”

Let's Think and Discuss

1. Ponder several current moral circumstances in your nation (we have overseas readers) that place it in jeopardy of God’s direct intervention. Commit yourself to pray for national revival. Ask God to point to areas in your life that signal an abuse of freedom. Repent, seek His forgiveness, and return to Him.

2 For families: On an upcoming hot summer day, when outside is too sweltering to play, your children might enjoy a little “counting test.” Open a new package of tiny marshmallows and have your children separate them into piles of five or ten and count the whole package. Now ask your children to make a pile of marshmallows equal to the number of times God forgives us when we make wrong choices and are rebellious.

Once they have discovered how many marshmallows the package contains, and made their stacks of “forgiveness chances,” explain how God forgives us when we come to Him and confess our wrongdoings. God forgives us more than we can ever count. Not only that, but we are part of His family that numbers more than the sands on the seashores of the world! Because we are not condemned for our many sins, we can live freely when we confess to God and are forgiven. This is real freedom! Now have your children spell out, “Thank you” to God in marshmallows and take a selfie for the fridge!

May all your paths be straight,
Larry C. Ashlock