"A RECIPE FOR DISASTER"

Hosea 7:8-9, "EPHRAIM IS A CAKE NOT TURNED...GRAY HAIRS ARE HERE AND THERE UPON HIM, AND HE KNOWETH IT NOT." Israel here is described as a 'cake not turned'. She is half burnt and half dough, not one part of it is fit for use. What is seen here is a mixture of idolatry or false worship, with the True worship of Jehovah God. It has never worked in ages past and never will be accepted in the eyes of God. We see in this text that in their disobedience, Israel was reminded of the approaching ruin as promised by God, as grey hairs are of old age, failing strength, but yet they refused to even notice them and take heed. The pride that leads a man to break the law of God only leads to self-flattery, excuses. It is a matter of trusting God to supply or trusting in what man can see physically and rely on his own devices. We must understand that the mercy and grace of God are the only refuge to which hard-headed sinners should ever consider for their salvation. In these two verses the prophet shows, by vivid figures of speech, the extent of the moral decay taking place in Israel. The "cake" mentioned here is in Hebrew, Uggah literally, "circular," and was a thin pancake, to which a scorching heat was applied on one side at a time. Israel had been separated by the Lord (Lev. 20:24-26), to be a people dwelling separate from heathen nations (Num. 23:9), in order that it might be a holy nation to serve Him. But Israel thought itself wiser than the Lord and mingled with the nations through intermarriage (Ahab and Jezebel), through cultural and economic exchanges, through political alliances, and most disastrous of all through adoption of heathen religions of idolatry. A cake not turned is burned to a crisp on one side and uncooked, incomplete, on the other side; it is worse than useless, it is nauseating. This is the first figure to describe Israel's moral decline. The second figure of speech used by Hosea pictures Israel as a man whose hair is beginning to show signs of physical decay by the sprinkling of gray hair as it begins to appear. Interesting phrase...'yet he knoweth not'. Though old age should bring with it wisdom, he neither knows of his senile decay, nor cares to gain the true knowledge from God that should lead to repentance and God's healing. If man is not continually learning so as to avoid spiritual decline, he will become senile and maintain a loss of his mental faculties. The phrase "and he knows it not" is also interesting in light of how 21st century folk take to gray hair making its presence known. I would ask any of you reading this who may be 'blessed' with a gray hair or two, if you were unconscious of when those gray hairs began to appear? This kind of reaction seen in Hosea is quite unnatural today. Men discover gray in their hair and laugh at them, try to pull them out or dye them to hide the truth; but, personally, I find we do not ignore them because they are signs of age and declining strength. As tragic and unreasonable as this might be in the physical realm it is even more tragic and unreasonable when it comes to the spiritual and moral realm. Yet it is continually true that signs of spiritual decline, which are many times so obvious to others, are too often undiscovered by ourselves. We go on, and on, and on, often the victims of weakening strength, spiritually and morally becoming degenerate, and often unwilling to recognize it! We are too often blind to the neon signs which are so evident to others. And there is no condition more dangerous to our highest well-being than being unaware of our own spiritual degeneration. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 2:15, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (KJV) Get into The Word of God. It alone has the power to save...