The Difficulty of God

The Difficulty of God

Hos 6:4-7 O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. 5 Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth. 6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. 7 But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me.

Heb 10:36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

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In our studies of the Book of Hosea, we are now deeply in the midst of the bulk of this prophet's preaching. In our last study from chapter 5, we discussed how that the word of God through Hosea revealed to us the progressive nature of divine judgment and we learned how that God does not just forsake and abruptly walk away from His children when they sin and disobey His Word. We discussed the progression that God undertakes to try to help the Christian overcome and turn from the wrongdoing in their life. First of all, God tries to speak through our conscience, and then if we will not hear that, Hosea said that God becomes "as a moth" and begins to allow small problems pop up in other areas of our life trying to get us to recognize our need to live uprightly. If that doesn't work, then the prophet said that God becomes to us "as a young lion" and God allows a tragedy to attack us trying to get us to wake up to the fact that we need to change and turn back to simple obedience of God's Word. The prophet then discloses that if all of these steps have been ignored, that God has no choice but to depart from our life, but even in His departure, He leaves regretfully, looking for any sign that we might turn back to Him. We learned from Hosea, then, that the judgment of God and it's progression is actually a portrayal of God's great mercy and even after God departs, He leaves the door open with "I will depart until..." God's mercy is so great that He still leaves the door of hope open to the willful sinner who has ignored over and over the call of God to their heart.

We ended that lesson on the "Departure of God" with the first few verses of chapter 6. In it the voice changes from God speaking to the prophet Hosea giving an anointed appeal to Israel:

Hos 6:1-3 Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. 2 After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. 3 Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

Remember that the chapter and verse divisions of scripture were put there by men and are not divinely inspired. These verses would have been better placed at the end of the previous chapter. Because after this beautiful appeal by Hosea, the speaker changes back to being the voice of God directly in verse 4 which is our key text for this lesson:

Hos 6:4 O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.

This is not Hosea speaking as a preacher but the direct voice of God being heard here. And God is in a difficulty. Twice He asks the rhetorical question "what shall I do?" "What shall I do... what shall I do?" Those are words that we would expect to hear from a human being in distress as they pace the floor with frustration at their own lack of ability to do something about some great and horrible situation that has arisen in life. They are NOT what we would expect to hear from God Almighty who fills the universe and has all things at His disposal. These verses, then, are quite extraordinary because they present God Almighty in a difficulty; in a situation in which the all-knowing One is in a quandary. In this lesson let's talk about the powerful principle revealed here about God's dealing with mortals: let's discuss what exactly the difficulty of God is here and how it can be resolved.

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This difficulty of God comes immediately after the prophet's plea to return to the Lord and to repent and to live Godly as they are commanded to by His Word. Obviously some time has passed between verse 3 of the appeal of Hosea and verse 4 which is the difficulty of God. Keeping this in mind, let's look closer at why God is in a difficulty:

Hos 6:4 O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.

Again the prophet speaks to both the northern kingdom of Israel (Ephraim), and the southern two tribes (Judah). His difficulty is "what shall I do with thee?" The reason is found in the next phrase: "for your goodness ... " Notice it is not their sin that has presented God with great difficulty for God knows how to deal with sin, but their "goodness."

What is goodness? The translators are divided as to what exactly is intended by this word in this verse. The root word in the Hebrew literally means "to bow the neck to another." It is a figure of speech of which we must rely on context to reveal to us the meaning. The New King James Version translates it as "faithfulness." "For your faithfulness is as a morning cloud." The New International Version translates it as "your love." The NASBU says "your loyalty." The Message says " your declarations of love." The Amplified says "your love and kindness." All are correct in a sense because "goodness" does constitute faithfulness, love, loyalty, declarations of love, and kindness. But there is a better word that is implied by the phrase which sums up all of these characteristics, and that word is "submission." That's what the phrase generally means.

So God's difficulty is because of Ephraim and Judah's "submission" and doing right. Obviously, they listened to the voice and plea of Hosea to turn back to the Lord -- at least for a time. Obviously, they responded to the powerful message of Hosea as found in our last lesson. But it is not just their repentance and submission that caused God's difficulty because that is exactly what God wanted them to do: turn back to Him! The difficulty of God was caused because their "goodness" or their "submission" "is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away."

Herein lies the problem. God uses two figures of speech to represent the people's goodness and submission: the morning cloud and the early dew. Both are beautiful things. The morning cloud catches the rays from the rising sun and shines forth with color and brilliance that is breathtaking. The dew causes every tree and piece of grass to shine with loveliness. But both share the same characteristic: they don't last for long. The morning cloud catches the beautiful rays of the rising sun for just a few minutes. The dew, is not heavy enough to produce a harvest and is soon removed by the heat of the sun. What God is saying is that their goodness and repentance and desire to submit to His will was beautiful and needed. They responded as they should have to the preaching of the Word, but their obedience didn't last. In fact, "as the early dew, it goeth away." They had a temporary change of heart and lifestyle but not one that lasted, and such wavering in purpose; such wavering in submission, places God in a great difficulty. Their hearts were sincere -- for a moment. They allowed their emotions to be moved properly and their minds properly affected by the message of returning to God, but their repentance and turn didn't last very long.

To put it into modern language and somewhat bluntly: they knew the truth of God's Word and they responded in the service to the anointed preaching and pull of God's Spirit and kneeling at an altar, they said all of the right things and sincerely meant them, but when they walked out of the church doors, then on Monday they failed to make the necessary changes in their lives so that they could live as they had pledged. After the emotion was gone, they went right back to doing whatever they wanted to. They had initial goodness, and their repentance and commitment to God was beautiful and needed and appropriate, but in actuality did no good because they did not take the actions that they needed to keep the covenant made before God on their knees.

We need emotion and passion because as human beings we were created to have such feelings, and repentance and responding to the Spirit are good things -- don't misunderstand me. But "faith without works is dead." And words mean nothing if our day to day actions don't back them up. Paul said it like this:

Rom 6:1-2 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

When you were baptized in the precious name of Jesus, you were supposed to become dead to sin. That doesn't mean that you will not accidentally sin and be perfect, but rather that if you are truly saved, there will be a desire to turn from willful sin. You will not just live your life continuing in things that you know are wrong and repeatedly repenting, but will actually make the physical changes in your life to remove from it the things that lead you to give in and continue to sin willfully against God. We'll come back to our actions in a minute, but for now let me remind you of what scripture is teaching us: When you truly repent and get things right with God and yet that submission is just a short thing -- something temporary and not lasting -- then you put God in a great difficulty. That is what sets God to asking "what shall I do with thee?" Let's look at the situation from God's viewpoint:

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There is a principle in God's Word that all natural laws mirror the spiritual laws and vice versa. That is, the God who is our savior is also the God who created this universe and He created the laws of nature to reveal to us the laws of living for Him. This is no accident, but design because Paul wrote to the church in Rome that "the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made..." (Romans 1:20). Simply put, we can understand the spiritual things about God's kingdom by observing the laws of His natural kingdom.

There are many examples of this principle -- too many to mention in one lifetime -- but some of the more famous are "consider the ant," being "born again" in the Spirit as someone is born in the natural, and the principles of leaven (yeast) as compared to sin, and the physical nourishment of bread representing the spiritual benefits of the Word of God. One of the most common lessons and comparisons in scripture, indeed the one that Jesus taught on the most often in His preaching, is the comparison to the planting, germinating, and cultivation of a seed/plant. In your mind, think back to the many times that the scripture uses seeds and sprouts and fruit and harvest and good ground and grapes and such to describe spiritual lessons for us today. I want you to understand what I am teaching you clearly: God created the entire earth with it's process of seedtime and harvest, and the entire growing process of earth's vegetation to teach us about how we develop and how the good things of God grow in our life. The spiritual came first and the other was created so that we can understand. Jesus has always used common, everyday analogies to help us easily understand spiritual principles!

One of the main points of harvesting and planting is this: you must have patience to see the fruit. (Stay with me, I have not forgotten about Hosea and God's difficulty.) The physical principle of nature is this: you plant the seed in good ground and then in time the seed will slowly grow and mature and then produce fruit. Everyone but the smallest children understand this principle. You don't plant a garden and then the next week get mad and till it all up and concrete over it because you didn't have anything to pick. You understand that fruit, especially something worth waiting for, takes time to develop. We have learned quickly in life that it is the weeds and the parasitical plants such as moss and kudzu that grow the most rapidly. Things worth eating and consuming take time.

It's amazing to me that what all of us understand so clearly in the natural, few of us understand in the spiritual. Our biggest problem and most of our frustration come from our instant/microwave preparation attitude toward the things of God. Simply put: we get impatient when we don't get instant results with God's Word or submission. When we give our first tithing check and we don't win the Reader's Digest Sweepstakes or get a raise, we are fast to doubt whether or not God's promises are true. When we ask God to touch a situation and we don't see what to us are satisfying signs that God is working within a few months, we quit praying and even get a little upset at God. The issue is not that God is not faithful, but rather that we are impatient!

All of nature teaches us that good things take time to develop but we forget or don't want to be reminded that the natural was to teach us about the spiritual. God will sometimes do the instant miracle, but usually to those who have been faithful all along. But He cannot lie, so why do more of us not see the more active hand of God in our lives? Because we do not stay faithful long enough for God to bless us. Our goodness and loyalty and faithfulness and submission is as the early dew "that goeth away" that Hosea recorded in our text. Our submission and faithfulness to our commitment with God is "evanescent" or, like the vapor on the sidewalk on a hot day, quickly gone. 99.999999999% of the time when a person complains about the unfaithfulness of God, or they feel as if God has let them down, or they gripe that the promises of the Word are not true, the issue is not the faithfulness of God, but the impatience of humanity. It's not that God has let them down, it's that God has not responded in their expected time table whether it be three day, three months, three years, or three decades. They have not reaped what they sowed because their goodness and faithfulness and passion was like the morning dew and when they didn't see instant results from God, they lost heart and submission and went back to doing things the way that they wanted. Let me say it again: if you feel as if you are not seeing the hand of God in your life as you should, the issue is not the All-powerful, and unchanging Good God that we serve, but rather your impatience with God. And you are allowing your impatience to cause you to slack off of doing right. Your goodness is as the morning dew "that goeth away."

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Let me remind you of the importance of patience in living for God. We are not in this for temporary and quick thrills but to obtain eternal salvation. If I never experience any material blessing down here but one day spend forever with God Almighty, then I have gained everything! We believe that, don't we? Listen to the Word of God:

Luke 21:19 In your patience possess ye your souls.

Rom 2:6-7 God "will give to each person according to what he has done." 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. NIV

Gal 6:7-9 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. 9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

2 Thess 3:5 And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

Heb 6:12-15 That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. 13 For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, 14 Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. 15 And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

Hebrews chapter 11 lists the "heroes" of faith such as Abraham and then says this about them:

Heb 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

James 1:3-4 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

We must have patience! We cannot separate patience from true faith. If we really believe the promise of God, then we will be patient enough to receive it in His timing. But too many of us pray once or twice or a few months and when we don't receive immediate answer, give up! There are some plants that bloom year around. There are some that bloom seasonally. There are others that bloom once in a hundred years! So it is with God! There are some prayers that are answered by seeing something bloom immediately but there are others that take years to develop and receive in our life. The issue is not whether or not God has answered our prayer or not, but that sometimes what we ask Him takes time to bring to a point where you can see the bloom and the fruit. Because we didn't see instant results, we mutter bitterly "God has failed" but God has not failed just because you prayed for something that takes time to grow. In fact the instance you prayed it, God "planted the seed" spiritually and started the process to bring it forth in your life. He wants to bless you, but there are blessings that don't happen instantly.

When you ask for something that takes time to germinate and develop, God instantly responds to your request in the Spirit by taking the steps to start the process. All you've got to do is to stay faithful to God in the mean time and continue to "water" the seed with prayer. But what happens if we ask Him for something that takes time and He responds by starting the process and yet our goodness is not lasting? What happens if the process is started and then we get discouraged because we don't see immediate results to our prayers and so we turn from being loyal and submitting ourselves to God? What happens exactly when you pray for God to make everything right in your life and then because it doesn't, "Kazam!," happen you turn back to your sinful ways?

What happens is that you place God in a great difficulty. This is when God becomes as the one pacing the floor wringing their hands. This is when God doesn't quite know what to do. "What will I do with thee, Ephraim?" God is saying, "Israel, you repented and I began the process to restore to you all of the glory and the blessings and to remove the curse, but because it didn't happen instantly you returned back to your sinful ways and thus stopped the process." "And now, what I am I to do?" "I can't bless sin, but yet I love you and wanted to respond by blessing you and restoring you?" And then another Sunday passes and you are back at the altar moved by the Holy Ghost again to repent and get things right with God and ask for HIS will in your life again and telling Him that you want to trust Him completely again for your life. But then on Monday the next week, because you didn't see an instant change, you get disgusted and downhearted and aggravated and return to your sinful ways or to your previous behavior or outlook and then you have placed God in a difficult situation. He wants to bless your sincere repentance, but He can't bless your unfaithfulness. He wants to show you that His promises are real and are truly "yea and amen" and yet you are not faithful long enough to His plan for you to see the truly great things come to pass! Your experience with God is limited to the shallow things that you can reap immediately: a temporary high and glow from a few minutes of worship in a service, the thrill that you have helped with something ministry minded a few minutes on Saturday, and the conscience appeasing five minute prayer that you prayed this morning. But the truly great blessings of God, the sweetest promises and things that come from Him opening up the windows of heaven in every area of your life, you have never experienced because you have placed God in a great difficulty by your "faith as a vapor." You have placed Him in a quandary by your lack of continual submission to God's Word.

That is the difficulty of God: when men truly repent and ask for things from God's Will and yet do not stay faithful enough until harvest time. When our goodness and submission is only for a short time, how can God give us the things that we asked for that require longer germination periods? He cannot lie and so responds instantly to our prayers and repentance by setting the seeds of blessing in our life, and yet He cannot bless the sin that we have returned to in our frustration. God is truly in a great difficulty in many of our lives, even today! The message of Hosea again rings loud and clear as being pertinent to our everyday living!

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Let's not leave the subject here. Let's move on to the solution. Is there a solution to God's difficulty? Yes, there is, but it is not found in His actions but in ours. Let me say that again: the solution to God's difficulty is in our hands. Glance back to the first verses of this chapter:

Did you catch the "let us" of this passage? Hosea, speaking to humanity, says "let us return" and then implied is "let us know," and "let us follow on to know." If we obey those commands then we solve the difficulty of God. The only answer is for our goodness to be faithful and long lasting. We must "follow on to know" Him better. God cannot solve His own difficulty because it is created by the human will, therefore only the human will can change it. But look at what happens if we obey "let us." Over six times it is written "God will" or "God shall." Our receiving the blessings of God is dependent upon us resolving the difficulty of God. We must be faithful and we must be loyal and our submission must last beyond the morning dew. The dawning of the day after our commitment and our repentance must find us living as we promised! If we do so, then the difficulty of God is solved.

God's difficulty is not wickedness because He brings His judgment upon that. It is not sin, because as our last lesson teaches, God knows how to deal with that. The difficulty of God arises when in His goodness He answers our prayers and our repentance by planting the seeds of blessing in our life and yet our faithfulness and goodness and submission doesn't last long enough to reap it! What is God to do? He is waiting on us to get the revelation that if we are faithful to Him, then He will be faithful to us, but some of the things that we ask cannot happen instantly because they take time to germinate and come to fruition. God is not mocked. We will reap in due season IF we faint not. When we faint, we place God in His greatest quandary. We create His greatest difficulty. What does He do with His child who is repentant and yet doesn't follow through on that repentance? What can He do with such a person? The answer is nothing. He is waiting on us to resolve His difficult dilemma.

There is no substitute for faithfulness and submission. You do not make up for your rebellion with service or sacrifice. Some people try to make up for their carnality and disobedience by giving more time and more effort to the church and the kingdom of God. They will go the extra mile, not because they love God, but because they are somehow trying to earn their way back into His favor. They are hoping that if they give enough or do enough that it will somehow overshadow that other area of their life that they don't want to change. But listen to the words of God through Hosea:

Hos 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

The Amplified puts it like this:

Hos 6:6 For I desire and delight in dutiful steadfast love and goodness, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of and acquaintance with God more than burnt offerings. AMP

You will not earn your way to heaven. Your good works and actions and working for the kingdom of God are important, but they must come from a desire to love God more rather than a desire to hopefully make us for something that you refuse to bring into submission to God's Word. Obedience is your choice. Submission is a choice that you have to make. God will not do it for you. God will not clean the sin and the temptation out of your life for you. God will not come down and make the choices for you. Your life is your garden and your eternal fate depends upon your choice of fruit. The only answer to God's difficulty lies in your submission to His Word and Will, and in your patience to allowing the process of God to work in your life.

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Israel of old didn't listen. They didn't resolve God's difficulty. They didn't make good their covenant. They didn't live their repentance prayer. God had to say:

Hos 6:10 I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.

Despite their being moved by the message of Hosea. Despite their sincere repentance and their goodness of actions after the message, they returned to their own sinful idolatry. They failed to reconcile the difficulty of God. They failed to be patient until they received the blessings that He had planted within their life.

And then comes the most tragic point of all and let it be a warning to you and I:

Hos 6:11 Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people.

God says "I have no choice but to push the blessings and the reaping of the promises that I have planted until after the "captivity of my people." They would be in captivity in Babylon for 70 years, enough time for a generation to die off. God was basically saying "because your goodness was as the vapor of dew in the morning and because your submission didn't last, I have no choice but to give my promises and blessings to the next generation."

Understand that it is the will of God for the people whom I am addressing to "possess the land." God wants to use you and I that are here tonight to win this city and to have Apostolic Revival. But if you and I aren't willing to pay the price. If we are not willing to submit our complete selves to the Word of God and obey it completely. If we are content to live in our willful sin and pray our prayers of repentance and yet never resolve the difficultly of God by being faithful until our prayers bloom and blossom. If we aren't willing to pay the price, then God has nothing else to do but to wait till the next generation. There will be someone in the next generation that will stand for truth if this generation does not. If this group of people will not live the Apostolic doctrine and lifestyle and be faithful to the One who has called us, then God will throw the net out again and there will be someone in that net that will obey! I refuse to allow the chance for God to work through me to pass me by! I can't answer for you, but I'm going to resolve the difficulty of God by being faithful and submitted to His will! Let us do as He has said. If we will, then He shall do likewise!