“Do not rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples, for you have played the harlot against your God. You have made love for hire on every threshing floor. The threshing floor and the wine press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail her”.
You and I may try all that we want, but we won't find blessedness some other way than God's way. Many think, “I will hit my head on the wall, again, and surely, it will stop hurting and heal”, but this is NOT the way. If you want a change of relationship with God, increased peace and fruitfulness, then you must live as He commands, believing God.
It is wrong to think that we can fight Him and prosper.
First, God doesn't change, and we must. He says, “the new wine shall fail her”. Thus, we must go from unbelief to faith, from self-service to love, and from impurity to holiness (1 Pet 1:21). We must be made different by the grace of God, so that we can have different results. God said, “They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no bud; it shall never produce meal. If it should produce, aliens would swallow it up” (Hos 8:7). God is not One to bless on our terms.
Secondly, the misery must be our teacher. He says, “the new wine shall fail her”. Don't be so blind as to say, “He hurts because He is wrong”, or, “This is just how it is”. Indeed, sin and thereby the curse is in the world. Yes, the most fruitful children of God are poor in spirit, often poor in this world's goods, persecuted, hated, and mocked as insignificant nobody's with no one to help them (Rev 2:9-10). But, the reality is that our behavior DICTATES much of what we receive, whether God fights for us or against. We will be hated and challenged the whole life of faith, but God is on the side of those who do His will. He says, “He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit” (1 Pet 3:10). Contrarily, He will not stop chastening until the actions are corrected in people. He doesn't allow us to rule ourselves, so He gives MISERY to guide us in a different direction. Some learn, but many are destroyed. He said, “I have written for him the great things of My law, but they were considered a strange thing. For the sacrifices of My offerings they sacrifice flesh and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins” (Hos 8:12-13).
Finally, God is here to help. In Haggai's day, the people were chastened for not building God's house, but we read, “the high priest, with all the remnant of thepeople, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him; and the people feared the presence of the Lord. Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, spoke the Lord's message to the people, saying, I am with you, says the Lord... and be strong, all you people of the Land, says the Lord, and work; for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts” (Hag 1:12-13, 2:4). He doesn't warn and chasten to refuse our cries. He doesn't call us to repent, and then deny our plea. If you will be turned, if you'll improve, then God is willing. If you need help to obey, then it will be given. You and I have not gone too far to obey God now.
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