'Ephraim is a cake not turned' (2)

‘Ephraim is a cake not turned’ 2

As Hosea was proclaiming God’s message, it was a time when there were many tensions in Israel; society was becoming less influenced by God’s Word; people were less spiritual and more carnal, they were experimenting with other religions and turning away from the one and only true God. ‘My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.’ (ch4:12) Secularism had eaten into society.

Ephraim, that once fruitful bough, should have been more vigilant; sadly they had become complacent on their watch, they turned from their former principles and flirted with the Secular spirit of the age. Hosea7:8 ‘Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people;’ Ephraim had made the SLIP, which was to take their testimony into the Secular gutter. Ephraim had wickedly departed from the Lord their God and set their affections on the things of this life. They had grown presumptuous, thinking that they could cover their sin from the gaze of the world; they had become hypocritical. ‘And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face’ (:2) ‘there is none among them that calleth unto me.’ (:7)

Ephraim had slipped away from the Lord; no more prayer from the heart, every outward show was reduced to mere ritualistic rant and empty profession; their heart was empty, they no longer called unto the Lord from a broken and a contrite heart. ‘Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people’. Ephraim had sought numerical strength among the world; Ephraim desired to live to the standards and precepts of those without the camp of Israel. Ephraim slipped through the hedge that God had beset His believing people with; they were now grazing with the goats in bypath meadow. In this day of spiritual calamity in Ulster the same can be said of Paisleyism; they too have slipped from the old paths of separation unto the Lord and are eating at the swine troughs of Secularism.

‘Ephraim is a cake not turned, what an interesting metaphor this is; Ephraim here is depicted as merely half baked or half hearted; this gives the impression of lukewarm ness which is offensive and distasteful to the Lord; Ephraim was lukewarm like the church at Laodicea, of which Christ said; ‘I know thy works, that thou art neither cold or hot; I would that thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.’ (Rev3:15-16) Paisleyism like Ephraim had climbed upon the fence of indifference; they would not condemn the error and evil of duplicitous compromise, neither would they support the LORD of hosts.

Paisleyism, like ‘Ephraim is a cake not turned’; lukewarm and unpalatable in the sight of God and before His people.

Rev Mervyn Cotton (Heb13:6)