Hosea 6: 4 NASB
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
For your loyalty is like a morning cloud
And like the dew which goes away early.
It started to look like it!
It was as if the people suddenly wanted to return to the Lord.
It made a beautiful confession of guilt.
It seemed to willing to walk in the ways of the Lord from now on.
Yes, and yet… The Lord is not satisfied with it.
He says it is no more than a morning cloud, a dew that is rapidly rising.
What is wrong with that confession of guilt?
Well, it’s just lip service, it’s not a real conversion, it’s not a matter of the heart.
Driven by need, the people had no other way than to go to the Lord, but as soon as the need is over, the old life is continued as it was before. It was a flight, not a conversion.
The Lord seems to be wondering. What shall I do with you? He asks…
Should He perhaps also be asking this, in view of our promises and good intentions?
With outward piety you cannot deceive the Lord.
You can be as religious as you like, but He will not be fooled by your fake religious actions.
He knows that our conversion, our service to Him, can often be compared to a morning cloud, which promises a lot of fertile water, but disappears again with the slightest breeze.
It is just like with a nebula: as soon as the sun shows itself, it evaporates.
We turn out to be and remain Adam’s children.
Yet we must change radically, because if we stay what we are, we can never escape the wrath of God.
When your mask of religiousness is taken away, you may go to Him, Whose righteousness is eternal. His beneficence is permanent.
Our Lord Jesus Christ has served the Lord completely, making Himself just before God. Moreover, He gave Himself in death to pay the debts for us sinners. Only in Him is our salvation.
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