Now Israel pleads with me, "Help us, for you are our God." But Israel has rejected what is good. (NLT, Hosea 8:2)Hosea warns the people of Israel that, because of their spiritual adultery, Assyria is poised and ready to invade. They cry out to God for his help: Save us! We're your people! But the writer makes it clear their words are incongruent with their actions. About this same time in history, the prophet Isaiah was writing to Israel's sister nation in the south: [The people of Judah] come near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me (Isaiah 29:13).
This passage reminds me of Eddie Haskell from Leave It to Beaver. He was an outwardly polite, smooth talking scoundrel, full of empty compliments: Oh my, Mrs. Cleaver, don't you look lovely today. When the adults weren't around he was a bully, always getting Wally and the Beav in trouble. But it didn't take long to see through his shtick. And the best thing was he didn't have a clue that people were on to him.
Likewise Israel wasn't fooling anyone but themselves. Over 700 years later, Jesus would speak these words: Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21).
When you ask God for help, does he think, "Good and faithful servant," or, "Eddie Haskell"?
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