Hosea 7:1

Hosea 7:1 says, When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without.  God was waiting ready to restore Israel, but they chose to still live in wickedness and chase after sinful practices.  They committed a falsehood, in that they claimed to be God's people but did not follow His leadership.  Thieves and robbers were everywhere.  When we begin to take the things of God for our own purposes, then we are living a falsehood.  As God's people, we must acknowledge His will in all that we do.  Verse two adds, 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.  The people of Israel might have thought that God did not know of their iniquity, but He was reminding them that there are no sins that are a secret to God.  God said that their sins were before His face, as are ours, where they will remain until they, and we today, come to Him in true repentance and He puts them out of His sight forever.  Only God can remove the stain of sin from our lives.  Verse three continues, They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.  The people of Israel were living to make the king and princes happy instead of living to make God happy.  When we start to live to make those in power happy instead of living to please God, we stand guilty before God.  Verse four states, They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.  The people of God were no longer leavened with God's word, but had become flat, useless to anyone, especially God.  They needed to be leavened, made alive again, by God's word.  Verse five adds, In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.  The leaders had become sickened with wine and were reaching out to those who scorned God.  Earthly pleasure and false Gods ruled them.  Verse six continues, For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.   Verse seven concludes, They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me.  I believe that God was telling them that they burned with the lusts of the flesh with no one to check the flame.  The priests and kings had turned away from God, and there was no one left of God's chosen people who called out to Him.  We need to make sure that our hearts burn for following the will of God, not the lusts of the flesh, or we too are in danger of having our witnessing for God burned away.