8:4,5
Israel, God’s people, are unusually stubborn. When they turned away from God, they stayed turned away. The followed a deceitful road, trusting in useless idols and useless nations. They were let down by their idols, yet they persisted in this trusting in deceit. Now consider this. The Old Testament is Israel’s holy book. If it was man-made, if you were writing a book for your nation, would you write the Bible! I think not, for it is far from complimentary about Israel. The Bible is God-breathed. Now, for those of us from other nations, we must not be smug. For Israel is like a microcosm of the whole of humanity. It demonstrates the nature of the whole of humanity. So the glaring faults and sins that we see in portrayed in Israel exist in all of us.
8:6,7
God listened to what Israel said, but they spoke a lot of rubbish. “None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, “What have I done?””. Each pursued their own course, and with determination. How true of our own societies! We need to repent, we need to question our ways. God then compares Israel (and, by implication, the whole human race) with nature, in this case the birds. The birds know their seasons, they migrate at the right time. They can travel vast distances, but they get to the right place. “But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord”. We are so good at getting things wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment