We need to know how to read the warning signs. When a storm comes, you often see the clouds form before the rain hits. They look ominous, and you can feel it in the air that something is about to go down. If we are wise, we will head for shelter and wait out to storm. Unfortunately, some people miss the signs, and the storm knocks them for a loop. The same goes spiritually. God often sends us warnings about the coming demise. The question we need to ask is if we are listening.
Hosea 1:2-3
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” 3 So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
Difficult Task
I don’t think any prophet in the Bible that was asked to do anything more demanding than Hosea. God tells him to marry a prostitute and have children with her. Prophets were the godliest men in the country. They held themselves to standards that others didn’t. Kings and priests looked to them for what to do and how to act. To marry a prostitute probably caused an uproar in the temple community, but then again most people were only giving God lip service at this time, so it probably wasn’t even noticed.
Starts With Compromise
Reading the warning signs means seeing them early. Trouble rarely just springs itself upon us. It often begins with a small compromise and progresses from there. It’s not that we didn’t notice the sin or weren’t convicted of it, we just desired the sin more than doing what is right. At the time it didn’t seem like a big deal, but it was an ominous beginning. We usually overlook the warning signs.
Finish Well
Fortunately, with God, it’s not how you start but how you finish. Things didn’t go well with Hosea and Gomer, but in the end, God redeemed the situation. Hosea marrying Gomer was God’s sign of how his relationship with Israel had devolved. He loved them as a husband loves his wife, but Israel had run off and prostituted themselves with other gods. He will lovingly purchase them back just as he does with us through the blood of his son Jesus Christ.
Changed from Inside Out
We can have an ominous beginning but turn that around and be changed from the inside out. Christ can take us from a life where we are at right now and transform it into the power of the Holy Spirit and his Word. Ask him to come in and make the change today.