Then they will say, “We have no king because we did not revere the LORD. But even if we had a king, what could he do for us?” – Hosea 10:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 18, 2014): Hosea 10

We are a fickle people. I can be friends with you, until you do something that I don’t agree with or I don’t like. It happens a lot with pastors. We think that the pastor we have is the best until he/she does something that we don’t agree with – and then they are just stupid. Have you ever wondered why our circle of friends is so small? Part of the reason is that we don’t have time to spend on those relationships. But the other part of the problem is that there are very few people that match up exactly with where we are. It is one reason why a person with a lot of friends often has to be very forgiving. We are pretty much guaranteed to be let down by the people closest to us. But maybe this is most obvious in the area of politics. We will support a politician in the beginning often because we think that what is important to us is what is important to them. But, as time progresses, we find out that they are not exactly the way we want them to be. So all in a sudden they were never like us and we discard them. We always knew that they were stupid - and what that really means is that things did not work out the way that we thought they would. It also lends to the idea that all politicians are liars – because we know that all politicians will eventually let us down.

Israel had come full circle. In the very beginning, the government of Israel was designed to be a theocracy – they existed with God as their only king. In the desert, God existed as smoke during the day and fire in the night. And as long as the fire of God was in the tabernacle, the nation remained encamped, but when the presence of God was lifted, the nation moved. Once the nation reached Palestine, again they divided up the land as God had directed. The most powerful single individual in Israel in that day was supposed to be the high priest, the one who ministered in the very presence of God. And when the nation was in need, God would raise up a Judge, one who was proficient in an area and they would lead the nation – or sometimes a portion of the nation – during that time of need.

But the time came when the people rose up. They were no longer happy with the way that the nation was being led. It was a time when a man named Samuel served Israel in all of the key areas of leadership of the nation – he was the High priest, and the nation’s Prophet, and he was the Judge that God had raised up. But the people decided that they wanted to leave the time of the Judges and become like the other nations; the other nations had a king to lead them. And God’s response to Samuel was that the people had not rejected Samuel and his leadership – what they were really doing was actively rejecting God.

A king was supposed to fix all of the problems of the nation. He was to bring strength and cohesion. And God was right. In the minds of the people the King began to take the place of God. And so we witness through the pages of biblical history that the people’s relationship with God seemed to be totally dependent on the king’s relationship with God. If the King had a healthy God relationship, then the people did too. But if the king ignored God, then the people also ignored God. All that had really happened was that there was an additional barrier that had been added between the people and God.

But now Hosea speaks of a time when the people will once again be without a king. Only then they will recognize the futility of ever having a king. When at first they proclaimed that if God and Samuel would only give them a king, all of their problems would be solved, in this future time they will recognize that a king is useless outside of a relationship with God. In fact, the reason why they have no king is because they allowed the king to have sovereignty over their faith – something that was never intended to happen.

It still is not intended to happen. The only way that any of our relationships work is if we maintain a close relationship with God. And in our fickle relationships, the real problem is that we have allowed someone else to decide the faith issues for us – rather than working with God to solve our faith problems. We still are installing kings in our lives to guide our faith decisions. And that will always be a mistake.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 11 & 12

Note: Last week's message from VantagePoint Community Church (Edmonton) - "Real Rich" from the series "The Upside Down Kingdom" is now available on the VantagePoint Website. You can find it here.