In his Sermon on the Mount message, Jesus discussed people who, either through circumstances or personal inclination, chose to be humble before God rather than self-sufficient. He called them the meek.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5.5)
When Jesus said the meek would inherit the land, He was quoting from Psalm 37.11. Earlier in the Psalm, the Psalmist defined the essence of the meek.
Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
do not fret over those who prosper in their way,
over those who carry out evil devices. (Psalm 37.7)
The meek have a humble trust in God, relying on Him as their primary plan without a fallback option if God’s actions do not align with their expectations.
The opposite of meekness is proud self-reliance. Proud individuals profess belief in God but depend on their own resources instead.
The meek and humble acknowledge all they have as gifts from God, while the proud focus on their needs and attempt to manipulate God or other gods to obtain desired outcomes.
God’s Opposition to Pride
God’s opposition to pride is not due to His pride of being neglected by His creation. Rather, He opposes pride because of the harm it causes His cherished children.
First of all, pride doesn’t work. It runs contrary to the way God has designed our world.
Second, it is the pride of those who live apart from God that generates the harm we see in the world, such as wars, oppression, and other afflictions.
It was out of love that God sent Hosea to 8th-century Israel. His mission was to expose their pride and describe the consequences of it.
Israel, Jehovah’s wife, was foolish, thoughtless, unfaithful, and forgetful.
She credited her yearly harvests to her success in appeasing Baal for favorable outcomes, denying that they were gifts from Jehovah and failing to place her trust in Him.
She did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil
and who lavished upon her silver
and gold that they used for Baal. (Hosea 2.8)
God’s actions will cause Israel to be humbled. What Israel had in abundance will be snatched away.
Therefore I will take back
my grain in its time
and my wine in its season,
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness. (Hosea 2.9)
Israel will be shamed and disgraced openly. Forsaken by Jehovah, she will be mocked as she is led to exile.
Now I will uncover her shame
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. (Hosea 2.10)
Self-sufficient pride transformed God’s appointed festivals into occasions for Baal worship. Consider how modern times have secularized holidays like Christmas and Easter.
In the 8th century, God humbled His people, Israel, by exiling them from their land, stripping away these adulterated celebrations.
I will put an end to all her mirth,
her festivals, her new moons, her Sabbaths,
and all her appointed festivals.
I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
“These are my pay,
which my lovers have given me.”
I will make them a forest,
and the wild animals shall devour them. (Hosea 2.11-12)
Pride leads to self-sufficiency, which leads to the manipulation of God or gods, which leads to forgetting our relationship with God.
Clearly, God cannot permit this to continue. Out of love, he wants his people to know him who is the best of all.
I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,
to whom she offered incense
and decked herself with her rings and jewelry
and went after her lovers
and forgot me, says the Lord. (Hosea 2.13)
Our Response
How can we remain God’s bride if we don’t remember that we are married to Him?
The blessing of being humble drives us to seek the blessing of being filled with God’s righteousness.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5.6)
When we realize that we are not sufficient in ourselves and depend humbly upon God, He is the one we seek.
One of the benefits of reading a prophet who wrote so many years ago is that we use his words to adjust our lives to conform to the will of God.
When we think about being humble before God, we take our definition from Psalm 37. We are still before Him. We have stopped striving for our own way, and we’re willing to wait patiently for His guidance and help.
May God lead us to this path of life today.
YouTube Video
Rudy Ross and I discuss this passage from Hosea today. It is on the Bob Spradling channel.
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