18 Even when their drinks are gone,
they continue their prostitution; their rulers dearly love shameful ways.19 A whirlwind will sweep them away, and their sacrifices will bring them shame. Hosea 4:18-19 (NIV)
This weekend I was at In N Out, the greatest fast food in the world. A group of young boys caught my attention. None of them could be older than 11; the four of them were eating their lunch. There was a lot of bragging and a lot of socking, all the things you’d expect from a group of boys. It came to the end of their meal and that’s when I noticed it: Two had sodas the other two had waters. Here’s where things get shady: the two with sodas refilled their sodas and brought it back to the ones with empty water cups. Apparently one of the soda drinkers was only half done with his soda before he got that final refill (Remember this point. It will be important later in the story). And as you’d expect the ones with soda filled the empty water cups. They all looked so proud; as if they’d found a loop hole in the system. The water guys didn’t serve themselves soda so they didn’t necessarily steal. The soda guys have free refills; they can do whatever they want with their soda right? At least that’s what they seemed to think. Either way, in my opinion thievery was afoot and nothing drives me nuts more than thievery. I wanted justice. And here it came. One of the water boys looked in his cup and looked at the boy who’d refilled his half drunken cup from before and said, “There’s floaties in my cup! That’s so gross!” Justice served up backwash style!
Here’s the lesson: sin is never all it’s cracked up to be. It promises great thrills but it doesn’t live up to the hype.
In verse 18, the original Hebrew says that their drinks had turned or had gone soar. That’s about right. Sin goes bad quickly. A whirlwind will sweep them away. In other words, there’s no stability in sin. Their sacrifices to idols will only bring them shame. The idols had promised so much more. But all they got out of it is shame.
Don’t buy into temptation’s lies. Sin never works out.
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