{"id":1557,"date":"2019-01-14T20:00:07","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T03:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=1557"},"modified":"2019-01-13T17:30:10","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T00:30:10","slug":"hosea5-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/hosea5-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Crowds You Should Not Let Influence You Too Much"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hosea 7:1-16\u00a0 \u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today’s passage is Hosea 7:1-16.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Hosea 7:1 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>“Whenever I would restore the fortunes of my people, whenever I would heal Israel, the sins of Ephraim are exposed and the crimes of Samaria revealed. They practice deceit, thieves break into houses, bandits rob in the streets;\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-2: These verses describe how every time God would restore and heal Israel, Israel (also known as Ephraim) would go back to its same old sins again.\u00a0 Examples of those sins include crime, thievery, robbery (v1), lying (v3), adultery (v4), and one more sin we will describe below.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0 No matter how much God helps you, if you keep choosing to go back to old patterns of sin, your spiritual life will be an endless cycle of getting into trouble, asking God for help, receiving that help, and getting back into the same kind of trouble, and asking God for help again.\u00a0 God did not make you to go in circles, but to move forward, to go from strength to strength, and glory to glory.<\/p>\n

Hosea 7:5 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n5\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>On the day of the festival of our king the princes become inflamed with wine, and he joins hands with the mockers.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 3-11: \u00a0There is another sin that the Israelites kept falling back into and which these verses describe in great detail.\u00a0 It’s the sin of allowing the wrong crowd to influence them (v3-11).<\/p>\n

Hosea cites two examples of this in his time.\u00a0 First, he saw that Israel’s kings were hanging out with clowns and eventually acting like them (v5-7).\u00a0 Second, he saw that the “easily distracted and senseless” Israelites were allowing other nations who did not worship the same God to influence their beliefs (v8-11).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this? \u00a0Be careful who you allow to influence your life.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0When a Christian allows the wrong crowd to influence him, he will go astray.\u00a0 That wrong crowd will “sap his strength, but he does not realize it.” (v9)<\/p>\n

Are you allowing the wrong crowd to influence you?\u00a0 In particular,\u00a0there are two wrong crowds you should be careful not to be influenced by.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, beware the influence of people who claim to be Christians but who are habitually unloving and disrespectful toward God and their church family.\u00a0 Hanging out too much with them or allowing them to influence you will only do you harm.\u00a0 It will cause you to become more and more of a cynic, a critic, a consumer (instead of a giver) and a hypocrite.\u00a0 Instead, be influenced by people who genuinely love Jesus and His church.<\/p>\n

Second, beware being influenced too much by unbelievers.\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong.\u00a0 We are called to spend time with our unchurched friends.\u00a0 We are called to love them and to lead them to Jesus.\u00a0 But when you’re hanging with your unchurched friends, be aware of who is influencing who.\u00a0 Instead of being influenced by those who don’t know Jesus, we are to influence them.<\/p>\n

Hosea\u00a07:13\u00a0(NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n13\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>Woe to them, because they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, because they have rebelled against me! I long to redeem them but they speak lies against me.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 12-13: God will call to account those who, after committing their lives to Him, go back to a life of persistent and intentional rebellion against Him.\u00a0 While a fresh batch of God’s grace is always waiting for us when we sin, those hard hearted ones who abuse that grace and who treat it as a licence to keep sinning will eventually face destruction.\u00a0 As verse 13b says,\u00a0God longs to redeem us, but there’s nothing He can do if we ourselves persist in sin and refuse to turn back to Him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hosea 7:14-16 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n14\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>They do not cry out to me from their hearts but wail upon their beds. They gather together for grain and new wine but turn away from me.
\n15\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>I trained them and strengthened them, but they plot evil against me.
\n16\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>They do not turn to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because of their insolent words. For this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 14-16: \u00a0Here God identifies 3 other mistakes the Israelites kept making that we must be careful not to keep making:
\n– Don’t play the victim by throwing pity parties for yourself.\u00a0 Instead, cry out to God and look to God for help (v14a).
\n– Beware gathering together with others just because you like the social aspect of meeting people, hanging out with people and eating with people.\u00a0 Everywhere you go, have a heart for God, to see Him glorified (v14b).
\n– Don’t repay God’s grace with rebellion, disrespect and rudeness (v15-16).<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, thank You for how You have mercy on me time and again.\u00a0 May my life not be a boring cycle of sinning, asking for Your help, and then sinning in the same way again.\u00a0 May I be wiser and more interesting than that.\u00a0 Having received Your grace, may I move forward, growing spiritually, getting stronger, going from strength to strength and glory to glory.\u00a0 Give me wisdom about who I allow to influence my life.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today’s passage is Hosea 7:1-16.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Hosea 7:1 (NIV)\u00a0
\n1\u00a0“Whenever I would restore the fortunes of my people, whenever I would heal Israel, the sins of Ephraim are exposed and the crimes of Samaria revealed. They practice deceit, thieves break into houses, bandits rob in the streets;\u00a0<\/p>\n

On verses 1-2: These verses describe how every time God would restore and heal Israel, Israel (also known as Ephraim) would go back to its same old sins again.\u00a0 Examples of those sins include crime, thievery, robbery (v1), lying (v3), adultery (v4), and one more sin we will describe below. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1559,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions\/1559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}