The Minor Prophets Speak to Today
I Am Watching But People Are Not Conscious Of It
Hosea 7:1-2 NLT
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“I want to heal Israel, but its sins are too great.
Samaria is filled with liars.
Thieves are on the inside
and bandits on the outside!
Its people don’t realize
that I am watching them.
Their sinful deeds are all around them,
and I see them all."
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The Country's Sins Are Too Great!
One of the most unpleasant truths in the Bible is that there comes a time when our sins are too great. Granted in this passage it is talking about the sins of a nation, which should give us great pause. After all it is the sins of a nation that bring it to this brink not the number of faithful believers within its boundaries. Let the nations of the earth beware!
1. Samaria was filled with liars. Is your country?
Liars and lies dominated the culture but one of the greatest lies was that their religious practices were acceptable to God. They were prostitute believers not faithful ones, but they lied to themselves and their religious leaders lied to them. Such is the case in a majority of churches and denominations of all stripes in Europe and America today. And this sin has so filled us with excuses for our other sins that it is multiplying our sins posting us on the border lands of being countries whose sins are too great.
2. Samaria had thieves on the inside. America does. Does your country?
Thieves - those who take what is not theirs. Now that hits much broader that the thief who takes something from your garage.
One of the biggest sources of thievery is the rich and the corporations taking the wealth of the rest of the nation and concentrating it among a decreasing few. Yet, we defend their right to perpetuate this thievery. Conservative, right wing Christianity stands in solidarity with their sin. Because of the lies we tell ourselves about our country and the "biblically correct" forms of economics we have become a nation filled with thieves inside.
We also sanction men and women stealing other men and women's spouses. We sanction financial crimes of all kinds and raise people who cheat on their taxes to folk hero status. We steal and destroy peoples reputations. If someone is good or possess a life of goodness, someone or more than one will actively seek to ruin that good. We cannot bear for someone to have something we do not.
3. Samaria had thieves on the outside. America does. Does your country?
Let's start with a controversial statement: Spies are thieves! Think about it. It's so true, despite the reason for spying. And outside our borders, as well as inside, are hackers, business spies, and government spies of all kinds.
American technology and financial secrets are being stolen all the time. Even our friends steal from us. Other countries have managed to manipulate our shipping jobs and business overseas as a means to steal copy righted, patented, even military information.
The said point is how much the thieves on our inside cooperate to enable the thieves out side our borders. Sin within breeds sin without. We export our sins and the new sinners turn our thieving way back on us.
I Am Watching But People Are Not Conscious Of It
1. A majority of our fellow citizens are no longer aware that God is watching us.
Americans as a whole do not realize God is watching them, especially they tend to think God turns a blind eye while they are sinning. Some believe he only watches to see the good he can do for us. Some claim he does not exist. Others claim he does not care about our daily lives. Many hope he is not, because they know if he is then they stand condemned.
It remains an open question in theological circles whether a believer can sin so much that God will turn his back on him. Those seven little letters before Revelation have a lot to say about the issue. The volume of our sins does matter to God. Whether we can lose his favor or the volume reveals a heart not truly converted, I will not state here. But one or the other, if not both, is true.
2. Here is where we stand damned as individuals.
We are so busy with our lives, our plans, our unfaithfulness, our warped ideas of what God wants, our sins that we no longer carry around a second by second awareness that God is watching us. But he is. That is why as individuals as well as as a nation we stand condemned and our punishment has already begun.
As Christians or so called Christians, people who claim the name but not the prize, our own and non-believers sins are all around us. God sees them but a majority of the time we are blind to them. The majority of our population stands blind to our sins and many are consciously trying to promote further blindness to sin crusading to make their personal sin appear just and persecuted. Be careful of popular movements to legitimize what God calls sin - be it economic, social, sexual, physical, spiritual or some other realm.
When we walk through this world with blinders on it does not protect us from judgement. God still sees all our sins and those committed in and by our nation. Sobering thought. Or at least it should be since when the sins become to great our fall is imminent - we pass the line of God's tolerance.
Photo Credits:
Blue Chalice by green-witch @photobucket.com
OH MY GOD O_O God's eye photo: GoDz eYe GetAttachment.jpg @photobucket.com
Eye of God by amada-tierra @photobucket.com
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