Hosea 8:3 Israel hast cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him
When I was in the Philippines a few years ago, I was driven to various places where I couldn’t find my way back if my life depended on it. I was on an island that I’d never been to before, in a city that I’d never been to before, and I was on streets that seemed to me to be chaotic. Yet I had a driver who knew where he was going, so I was ok.
There are two kinds of people today. There are those who are led and those who are lost. Actually, all of us are following somebody, but what I mean is that all of us allow God to lead us or we are lost to our own way. Those who refuse God’s leadership are lost to their way.
Such was the case with God’s own people Israel. When Hosea says in Hosea 8:3 that Israel had cast off the thing that was good, they had cast off God, His good guidance, His good leadership, and His good provision. Israel had cast God off, and now their own idolatry, wickedness, and rebellion would cast them off. Their own ways would surround them, beset them, and destroy them. They were lost. Oh, they had leadership, but it was the wrong kind. Oh, they had religion, but it was one of their own making. They were not led by God. They were lost to their own way.
Now if this calamity could befall an entire nation of people, don’t you think it could befall one person? Where are you with God? Are you led? Or are you lost? Perhaps you are considering some major decision or even a small decision that gnaws at your mind. Few things are worse than being lost to our own ways.
Increasingly, to follow God’s leadership is a frightening thing because it is so counter to the culture and what we read, hear, and watch every day. But God’s Word works and God’s way works. Let God lead. Seek Him. Be willing to follow Him, and I can promise you He will show you the way.