A good reading from Charles Spurgeon’s Chequebook of the Bank of Faith devotional, based on Hosea 2:14:
“I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.”
“The goodness of God sees us allured by sin, and it resolves to try upon us the more powerful allurements of love.
Do we not remember when the Lover of our souls first cast a spell upon us and charmed us away from the fascinations of the world?
He will do this again and again whenever he sees us likely to be ensnared by evil.
He promises to draw us apart, for there he can best deal with us, and this separated place is not to be a Paradise, but a wilderness, since in such a place there will be nothing to take off our attention from our God.
In the deserts of affliction, the presence of the Lord becomes everything to us, and we prize his company beyond any value which we set upon it when we sat under our own vine and fig tree in the society of our fellows.
Solitude and affliction bring more to themselves and to their heavenly Father than any other means.
When thus allured and secluded the Lord has choice things to say to us for our comfort.
He ‘speaks to our heart,’ as the original has it. Oh that at this time we may have this promise explained in our experience!
Allured by love, separated by rial, and comforted by the Spirit of truth, may we know the Lord and sing for joy!
I recently turned 40 years old, and read a passage a few months ago that particularly struck me.
During Stephen’s famous sermon in Acts, he quotes Amos 5:25-26, where God says to his people, “Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during the 40 years in the wilderness, Israel? No, you served your pagan gods.”
Where have I been the past 40 years? Much of it in the wilderness, and much of that time serving my pagan gods, whatever they may be.
We often talk about how we complain in our wanderings in the desert, like the children of Israel in theirs, but we rarely ask where we took our sacrifices. Maybe we haven’t complained, but who have we served?
I don’t want to serve my pagan gods, and may my next 40 years — may yours — find us bringing God sacrifices. Not just because he deserves them, but because that’s the only way life can feel like life.
After all, as God also says in Hosea: “Oh Israel, stay away from idols!”
But why? Because God is simply jealous? No.
“I am the one who answers your prayers and cares for you. I am like a tree that is always green; all your fruit comes from me.”
(Photo: Sinai Desert, wikipedia).
