TOPIC:‌"The Sadness of Half-Baked People"

                  by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap

 

TEXT:‌Hosea 7:1-10

 

"My people of Israel mingle with godless foreigners, picking up their evil ways. Now they have become as worthless as a half-baked cake" (Hosea 7:8, NLT).

 

‌In the Bible verse before us we have a vivid and descriptive metaphor used by Hosea the prophet to communicate God's complaint against Ephraim, the northern kingdom of Israel. Here were the ten tribes that had departed from the Temple rule at Jerusalem and set up the northern kingdom. Having forsaken God's laws they compromised their beliefs with their pagan neighbors around them. Drifting towards heathenism, they played around with the false gods of these idolatrous people. And yet, in all of this they retained an outward allegiance to Jehovah God. They were half and half - half for Jehovah and half for other gods. Hence the figure of speech - "worthless as a half-baked cake." The KJV version renders these words: "Ephraim is a cake not turned."

 

‌Let me ask you: Can you imagine anything more distasteful to the mouth than a cake half-baked? Can you think of anything more displeasing to the eye than a cake not turned over? Well that's the picture we have of ancient Israel and that's the portrait of many people in our churches today. They are like half-baked cakes. Not good to the taste and not pleasant to the sight. And such a condition causes untold grief to God the Father and Christ the Son.

 

‌Permit me in this message to mention four types of people who are like half-baked cakes.

 

I.

 

‌Consider, to begin with, there is the half-baked person who has NICENESS without NEWNESS. He has goodness without grace. To read about this person we must go to Paul's words to Titus as found in chapter 3 verse 5 where we read these words: "He saved us, not because of the good things we did, but because of His mercy." Or as Paul writes to the Ephesians: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith...it is the gift of God - not by works" (Ephesians 2:8, 9).

 

‌Now what Paul is telling us here is that human morality is no substitute for divine mercy when it comes to this matter of salvation and forgiveness. Christianity is not a matter of what we do for Christ but a matter of what Christ has done for us. It is not a matter of man's goodness but of God's grace. This is where the thinking of many people has gone off the track. One may be an upright church member, and yet, know nothing of the new birth and the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ.

 

‌Let me show you what I mean. Take for example the religious . . .