Let's move through chapter 8 with some key passages that are equally relevant for us.
8 Sound the alarm!
The enemy descends like an eagle on the people of the Lord,
for they have broken my covenant
and revolted against my law.
Now Israel pleads with me,
‘Help us, for you are our God!’
But it is too late.
The people of Israel have rejected what is good,
and now their enemies will chase after them.
The people have appointed kings without my consent,
and princes without my approval.
By making idols for themselves from their silver and gold,
they have brought about their own destruction. (1-4)
When we no longer include God in our lives, by acting in harmony with His covenant and His kingdom, and we trade our liberty in Christ for the security of the world's approval, can we expect anything different from what the northern kingdom experienced in Hosea's day?
Yes, he prophesied for 30 years, and yes, their apostasy didn't incur judgment right away, and yes, God is infinitely patient, but at some point God will say, "Game over."
It's hard to identify your enemies if you are acting like them. If you are compromising your kingdom of God values to have the world approve of you, then when your enemies show up, they will look, sound and act like you do. How could they be enemies, right?
One of the reasons the Nazis were so successful in seducing the people was they spoke aloud what a lot of people felt: that Germany should not have lost the Great War of 1914-1918. The only "logical" explanation was: Those who were hiding in the shadows had undermined the war effort. Hitler pointed to the Jews and identified them as the cause; because of the long history of antisemitism in Germany, that explanation did not seem farfetched. It made sense to a people who, while they may not have thought in such extremes as Hitler, felt he was onto something. Others, because they already thought the Jews were evil schemers, didn't question what he said. They didn't see the inherent evil in what he said because they felt the same way.
We don' t question those people who think like we do. Why would we? We pride ourselves on being right and so those who agree with us? They must be right, too. So, if your enemies want to ingratiate themselves into your world, they tap into what you already partially or fully believe. Maybe not the things you say everyday, but they tap into your deep assumptions about how the world works.
Enemies also tone down the rhetoric, until that rhetoric has marinated in the society for a while, and then the ideas don't sound so, well, extreme.
Maybe a lot of Germans didn't quite buy everything that Hitler was selling, but they bought enough to allow more and more of his "information" to take over their thinking.
The enemies of Israel (the northern kingdom) said what the Israelites wanted to hear: many gods were acceptable; Yahweh couldn't be the only god; He wasn't reliable or powerful enough to protect them; they needed local allies who were powerful and strong to stand by them and the Israelites had pleased the gods with their devotion to all those rituals.
These were their enemies. But the Israelites didn't recognize that until it was too late. The Israelites had shown themselves to be fervent followers of pagan religions. So their enemies looked like them.
If you can relate and even see yourself in them, how can they be enemies?
The kings and princes that they sought security from, and the idols they fashioned with their own hands, blunted their ability to see evil for what it was. How so? Think of how Hitler used lying to achieve his ends:
The big lie is the name of a propaganda technique, originally coined by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, who says “The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one,” and denotes where a known falsehood is stated and repeated and treated as if it is self-evidently true, in hopes of swaying the course of an argument in a direction that takes the big lie for granted rather than critically questioning it or ignoring it...Various sources, both popular and scholarly, attribute the following passage to Joseph Goebbels on the big lie: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” [1]The Israelites believed the lie that their security was to be found in alliances with foreign powers, and not in the covenantal promises of Yahweh. They only seemed to remember Him when times grew dark, and they called out to Him in desperation (verse 2), but it was too late.
Let's look at those verses and apply them to the Israelites:
but these very altars became places for sinning!
Even though I gave them all my laws,
they act as if those laws don’t apply to them.
The people love to offer sacrifices to me,
feasting on the meat,
but I do not accept their sacrifices.
I will hold my people accountable for their sins,
and I will punish them.
They will return to Egypt.
Israel has forgotten its Maker and built great palaces,
and Judah has fortified its cities.
Therefore, I will send down fire on their cities
and will burn up their fortresses. (11-14)
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