“I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O Death, I will be your plagues! O grace, I will be your destruction! Repentance is hidden from My eyes” (vs14).
Doing God's will from the heart is best for us (vs1-3). When he spoke with trembling, Ephraim, like Paul the apostle, was exalted. Paul said, “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor 2:3-4). But, when he got self-confident and strayed from grace, Ephraim died, lost his power, and became subject to defeat. It is the same with us: the same God who blesses our obedience also reproves our wickedness. He honors faith, and He reproves unbelief, giving us thorns (Gal 6:7-8). It is wrong to think that behavior cannot change or doesn't matter. The way that you feared God in the beginning, and He blessed you, is the way that you must return to now.
Tremble at His word, say what He says, and walk in the Spirit as commanded. He says, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another”. When we do it our way, the Lord will depart. He won't be second fiddle or the follower of our schemes. He'll bless all who fear Him, and He'll fight against those who don't (2 Chron 15:1-2).
Secondly, because of ease and victory, we forget God, so we have troubles to remind us of Him (vs4-9). He says, “I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. When they had pasture, they were filled; they were filled and their heart was exalted; therefore they forgot Me.” It is wise to be thankful and walk humbly, but we think our success is because of us - that we're special and cannot be chastened. We think rules apply to others, but they don't apply to us. Therefore, we stop fearing God, and the result is that we give our glory to an idol, and God removes the very power whereby we succeeded. He says, “So I will be to them like a lion; like a leopard by the road I will lurk; I will meet them like a bear deprived of her cubs; I will tear open their rib cage, and there I will devour them like a lion. The wild beast shall tear them.” He tells us NOT to grieve the Holy Spirit, for when He is grieved, who is your Comforter, who gives you peace, and who overcomes your sin? He says, “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; so He turned Himself against them as an enemy, and He fought against them” (Is 63:9-10; Eph 4:30). We don't know how WEAK we are until we've offended the Spirit and must battle sin and Satan with little tangible help from God. When the Spirit allows unbelief and hypocrisy to mount, when fearing man replaces fearing God, and when human praise and ease of life is more important than Christ's Church and purpose, then the Lord's turned against us because we've FORGOTTEN Him. Guard your heart from self-sufficiency, and you'll protect yourself from falling. He saved you, not because you're great, but because He is, and this makes us willingly love.
Lastly, our salvation is guaranteed because God is the Redeemer; it is not because we're doing right, but when we are wrong, we're saved and pulled to safety because of who He is (vs12-14). He says, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your destruction! Repentance is hidden from My eyes”. He doesn't wait on us to change, but He gives the change (Acts 5:31-32). He saves by pulling us from the pit, teaching us what we'd never learn ourselves, and by giving us the GRACE necessary to recover. This is the goodness, pity, and love of God because He's merciful, and like a man who can't count on his neighbor, He goes and does it all Himself. Isaiah 59:15-16, says, “So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him”.
Salvation doesn't frustrate God, as if He woos, teaches, and nothing happens. Yes, many perish in their sin, but it is no failure or evidence of His inability; it is His purpose to make His wrath known. Scripture says, “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory” (Rom 9:22-23). We're born God's enemies, but when chosen, loved in the covenant, and promised eternal life, we will come to Christ. We're drawn by the God who handles everything Himself. He says, “All the Father gives Me will come to me”, and, “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the Last Day” (John 6:37-39). I'd love an all expenses paid vacation, where everything is provided; but I have an all-expenses paid salvation, where even my will power and repentance are included as things that God will do, so that I don't get destruction.
He had a purpose in our pain, and it was to reveal Himself the Savior of sinners who've really sinned and brought misery on ourselves, misery, that in itself, couldn't change us. No man is saved by what God does to Him, until God does the whole thing in Christ and brings you all the way home: there is not one inch of man, so it is sure to all who believe! Romans 4 says, “Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure... [for God] gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did” (vs16-22).
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