In 2 Chronicles 25 Amaziah, the king of Judah, went to battle against the people of Edom.  God gave him a decisive victory over his enemy, and he returned home in triumph.  But Amaziah did something strange and unexplainable.  He took the idol gods of the people of Edom back to Jerusalem, set up altars to them and bowed down to worship them.

The scripture tells us that God’s anger was aroused against Amaziah.  He sent a prophet to the king to rebuke him.  “Why have you sought the gods of the people, which could not rescue their own people from your hand?” asked the prophet.

Seems kind of silly doesn’t it?  Amaziah won a great victory over the people of Edom through the power of the one true God.  Yet in his arrogant foolishness, he immediately turned away to other gods.  Gods that could not even save their own people.  Gods that were exposed as powerless frauds.  Yet here was King Amaziah bowing before them.

Actually, it’s not that silly at all.

We do the same, don’t we?  The modern idols of money, fame, sex, power, and entertainment have been proven powerless to bring lasting happiness.  Those who seek after these fraudulent gods find themselves living meaningless, empty lives.  Yet we keep following after them, hoping somehow they will finally come through for us.

We, as followers of Christ, should know better.  We serve a God who have proven over and over again that He is the one true God.  We follow after a Savior who gave His own life for us.  We trust in a Father who gave His own Son for us, promising to freely give us all things.

Yet we bow to the idols of this world.  We drown in materialism while the poor suffer.  We turn to marketing and scheming because we lack the power of the Holy Spirit.  We watch a 3 hour football game, but couldn’t imagine spending 3 hours in prayer.  We waste our time with meaningless entertainment when He has called us to so much more.  We have settled for the futile lords of this world, while the God of the Universe patiently waits for our wayward hearts.

Hosea 2 is a message from a jealous Husband to His unfaithful wife.  In spite of our wanderings, God speaks words of mercy to us,

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
      Will bring her into the wilderness,
      And speak comfort to her.
      I will give her her vineyards from there,
      And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope;
      She shall sing there,
      As in the days of her youth,
      As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

God is calling to us.

He is calling us to get off our knees and to stop bowing to the gods of this world, gods that cannot satisfy, gods that cannot save.  These worldly gods have never kept their promise to anyone who has followed after them, and they have let us down as well.  But our jealous Husband is calling.  He is alluring each of us to that wilderness place where He will speak words of comfort and words of hope.

I’m not much for quotes, but I think C.S. Lewis said it best in my favorite quote from his sermon “The Weight of Glory”:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

This is not some guilt trip.  This is not a call to do more or be more for God out of religious obligation.  That’s just more of the same.  This is a call to lay down our idols and fall in love with the one who paid for our hearts with His life.  This is a call to stop settling for too little.  This is a call from a jealous Husband to His bride to come away and know the joy of His presence.

Will we answer His call?