Sermon: The Danger of Being Assimilated

The Danger of Being Assimilated (Hosea 6:11-7:16)

Pastor Tony Felich

February 10, 2008

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The advance of Christ's Kingdom on earth has always included the great struggle of the Church against cultural assimilation

THE EXAMPLES OF THE DRIFT TOWARD ASSIMILATION IN BIBLICAL HISTORY
- Lot and Sodom (Genesis)
- Israel and Egypt (Exodus)
- The conquest of Canaan (Joshua)
- The people's demand for a King (Judges)
- Israel's Fall (Hosea)
- Judah's Fall (Jeremiah)
- During the time of Christ and the Apostles (James addresses)
- Ongoing struggle right up to present

NOTICE THE FEATURE OF CULTURAL ASSIMILATION IN HOSEA'S DAY
- Unfaithful Leadership
- Lack of the true knowledge of God
- Lack of repentance when confronted by God
- Mixture with the world

HOW MIGHT WE (THE CHURCH/CHRISTIANS) RESIST CULTURAL ASSIMILATION?

Hosea 6:11–7:16 (Listen)
11 For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed.
When I restore the fortunes of my people,
7:1 when I would heal Israel,
the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed,
and the evil deeds of Samaria,
for they deal falsely;
the thief breaks in,
and the bandits raid outside.
2 But they do not consider
that I remember all their evil.
Now their deeds surround them;
they are before my face.
3 By their evil they make the king glad,
and the princes by their treachery.
4 They are all adulterers;
they are like a heated oven
whose baker ceases to stir the fire,
from the kneading of the dough
until it is leavened.
5 On the day of our king, the princes
became sick with the heat of wine;
he stretched out his hand with mockers.
6 For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue;
all night their anger smolders;
in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
7 All of them are hot as an oven,
and they devour their rulers.
All their kings have fallen,
and none of them calls upon me.
8 Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
9 Strangers devour his strength,
and he knows it not;
gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,
and he knows it not.
10 The pride of Israel testifies to his face;
yet they do not return to the LORD their God,
nor seek him, for all this.
11 Ephraim is like a dove,
silly and without sense,
calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
12 As they go, I will spread over them my net;
I will bring them down like birds of the heavens;
I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation.
13 Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!
I would redeem them,
but they speak lies against me.
14 They do not cry to me from the heart,
but they wail upon their beds;
for grain and wine they gash themselves;
they rebel against me.
15 Although I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they devise evil against me.
16 They return, but not upward;
they are like a treacherous bow;
their princes shall fall by the sword
because of the insolence of their tongue.
This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.