One is impressed how, in a few words, the ancient prophet could describe what meteorologists are saying in our time – that there can be serious danger in a breakdown occurring in nature patterns. Reasons for this change include the way mankind lives, in our uses of natural resources, but mainly cycle periods. Scripture suggests that we might look in another direction as well – that the controller of the universe has designed it all for his own meaning. Human excesses and cavalier uses of creation may be attenuated when our time is taken for adaptation in place of wantonness. The passage from Hosea deals with adultery and wantonness, the failure of the priesthood, drunkenness, even the loss of good faith and mutual trust. These are made causes, wrote Hosea, for what some may identify as global warming, an extended rise in temperatures that change the facilities of earth and sky. Part of God’s communication to us is in nature. We build laws on it.
Later in the chapter, Hosea wrote: A people without understanding, comes to grief. Do cycles of nature partly relate to the personal conduct of the people during the period of any cycles being investigated? It might be well to know that if during a long period of distress in the world of nature there may have been a decline in social morality, in general conduct. The person believing in the claims of Scripture tends to believe in such factors. This may agree with the prophet’s opinion that we do not have adequate understanding about some causes. If we read Hosea rightly, no one but God has authority to interpret his judgments with adequate clarity. (Hosea 4:4)
We may be confused about how we ought to live and communicate. Advocates have argued that Christians ought to have many children so as to populate the world with Christian oriented persons. Others have argued that we should do little in trying to influence the political world so as to hasten the demise of a flawed system that sometimes violates the Kingdom of God. History moves along, sprinkled with guesses. This becomes a strategy of subversion, which forgets the call of God that his children should be found faithful. Christians are meant to live, think, work, educate entirely on the basis that God means to improve us through following the commission to Adam to dress (work) the earth and know (learn) it, to have God’s creation in as good condition as mankind can make it. We stand for justice, clean environment, righteous conduct, lifting up the poor, even ministering, with hope, to guilty prisoners, and indigent persons as well as the established and accepted masses. We resist the attitudes, conducts, theories that degrade any person, or permit cavalier approaches to any part of the created system. God means well for us.
There will be inevitable changes in nature. We must adjust to them. As magnificent as nature is, it is susceptible to good/ill treatment and cycles of change. The children of God are called to invite persons to Christian relationships and to responsible daily/natural life for all. We must serve the poor, care for the hungry, heal the sick, and live responsibly in a world that God cares about – in love. He will eventually rescue and recreate it – to his honor and the benefit of his own who work for abundant life. We work to be responsible in faith and conduct both personally and corporately. We remind ourselves there is a common grace, equality for all persons. In various ways we have become more sensitive to the human condition, but that theme is for other Pages. What is needed is awareness that there is something going on related to mankind and God, and that the exchange is partly found in the involvement of man and God in nature. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020