"These [in Berea] were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so." - Acts 17:11

(1) `When I give healing to Israel, Then revealed is the iniquity of Ephraim, And the wickedness of Samaria, For they have wrought falsehood, And a thief doth come in, Stript off hath a troop in the street, (2) And they do not say to their heart, `That' all their evil I have remembered, Now compassed them have their doings, Over-against My face they have been. (3) With their wickedness they make glad a king, And with their lies -- princes. (4) All of them `are' adulterers, Like a burning oven of a baker, He ceaseth from stirring up after kneading the dough, till its leavening.


We cannot fail to see the same conditions prevailing in our nation. For God to bring about repentance and healing, He must first restore a knowledge of His standards. But when He does, the faithlessness becomes very apparent. It sounds much like Paul saying, "When the commandment came, sin revived and I died" (Romans 7:9).

Unfortunately, when God exposed the Israelites' sins, they did not repent as Paul did. Genuine repentance is impossible without a consciousness of sin. Hosea's indictment is that Israel was not conscious of their faithlessness to God: "They [did] not consider in their hearts." This shows how "far gone" they were under sin's addiction. They had become almost completely numb to their spiritual state. Spiritually speaking, they were sleepwalking through life, unaware of the social disaster they had created and in which they were wallowing. Faithlessness was the "norm" and generally accepted.

When this faithlessness combines with marriage and promiscuous sex, very few people will change, despite all the evidence of how destructive this sin is! Syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, chlamydia, AIDS, broken homes, increased illegitimacy, rebellious children, teens bearing children, and latch-key kids—who see their parents only at bedtime because both parents work to provide them "with the better things in life"—are just some of the effects.

— John W. Ritenbaugh

To learn more, see:
The Seventh Commandment (1997)



 

Topics:

Addiction to Sin

Addictions

Consciousness of Sin

Faithlessness

Repentance

Standards of Morality

Standards of Right and Wrong




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