Hands Off

“I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall.” (Ho 4:14 AV)

 

At first glance, this does not make sense.  Does not God hate sin?  Does He let sin go without any judgment whatsoever?  Does not God care about Israel and won’t He visit their transgression?  The context is Israel and Judah as they backslide away from God after the idols of their neighbors.  The Bible tells us that whom the LORD loves, He chastens.  This is the understanding of the word ‘punish’ above.  To punish here does not mean to judge.  In other words, the LORD is not stating He will leave Israel and Judah alone as they backslide from the LORD.  Quite contrary.  The LORD will bring Assyria and Babylon against them and carry them off to captivity as a result of their whoredoms.  What He will not do is chasten them for correction any longer.  The text suggests their sin was so ingrained into their culture that revival became impossible.  The father has led their children into spiritual whoredoms and it was not so much of who and what they were that correction would be pointless.  Therefore, He gives them over to their sin and it will be their sin that caused greater consequences than any punishment God would send.  It would be the whoredoms of pagan gods that open the door for the pagans to come in and haul them away captive.

My mind goes to the prodigal son.  I am sure that he was not a perfectly obedient son and one day decided to go off the deep end and demand from his father what he thought was his just due.  There had to be some signals that this son was not headed in the right direction.  There had to be some indication that he would pull this.  No doubt dad did all he could do to train him up right.  Nonetheless, when he came of age, he rebelled against his father’s love and took off.  He wasted all his living.  This means he spent all his father had given him as well as all that he owned and earned.  He was reduced to absolutely nothing.  The good news is, no matter what happened to him, he was still his father’s son.  Nothing could sever that relationship.  They were still bonded by the natural relationship of father and son.  All he needed to do was to return and all would be forgiven.  All he needed to do was to return in humility and fess up to what he had done.  He was reduced to nothing.  Just like Israel and Judah, the Father took His hand of protection and correction off of these two nations and left them to themselves.  It was the natural consequences of their choices that reduced them to nothing and prepared them for repentance and restoration.

The Bible also tells us not to despise the correcting hand of God.  The correcting hand of God is the extension of His love towards His children whom He desires only the best.  To welcome the correcting hand of God is to avoid much worse consequences.  Be sure your sin will find you out.  It is much better to respond to His correction and work towards holiness than to let it go and come to the end of oneself.  The thing with Israel and Judah is their sin went on for generations to the point their sin defined who and what they were.  This was not a matter of having a solid foundation to which they could return.  What God made them ceased to be.  What God wanted for them ceased to be a possibility.  Iniquity had become so prevalent that God could do nothing to change them.  There are stubborn sins in our hearts that often come to this end.  God has tried to correct us and we do not respond.  It is these hardened sins that often determine permanent consequences.  Those vices tend to be part of who and what we are.  But there is hope.  God will never leave nor forsake us.  Even though Israel and Judah were carried away, God did not abandon them.  Jeremiah, God’s prophet followed them into captivity.  God sent Esther.  God provided others.  He did not leave them just because they left Him.  God desires His best for us.  However, when we repeatedly reject it, He is left with no alternative but to let us have our wants.  These desires wreak great damage in life but God is there to pick up the pieces.  Praise be to God.