God Will Be "As The Dew”

In this beautiful metaphor, He says, "I will be as the dew unto Israel".

Now, ordinarily we do not think much about dew, and if we do think about it, we certainly do not compare it to our relationship with God. In fact, we do not see a lot of good in dew.

• The ladies generally do not like it because it takes the curls out of their hair.

• The men generally dislike dew because it causes our shoes to get wet when we walk on grass.

• Before they had permanent press clothes, we men disliked it because it took the crease out of our pants.

We generally do not think of dew in a POSITIVE WAY.

Let us see what God had in mind when He said, “I will be as the dew unto Israel.” Before we can appreciate this metaphor we need to consider the definition of dew.

Illus: Dew is a deposit of water droplets, formed at night by the condensation of water vapor from the air, onto the surface of objects exposed to the sky. Dew forms on clear nights when the air is calm or winds are light. The process that produces the dew begins as the sun begins to set and night begins to fall. Objects exposed to the open air cool faster than the air around them, and if it is sufficiently humid, water vapor condenses out of the air and covers the object.

Now with this in mind, what did God mean when He said in Hosea 14:5, "I will be like the dew to Israel"? The explanation has to do with the definition of what dew is and how it forms. For example-

I. DEW COMES IN THE STILLNESS OF NIGHT

Our society knows very little about stillness. We live in a fast paced world!

Illus: A man was in a hurry while taking his 8-year-old son to school. In his haste, he accidentally made a turn at a red light where it was prohibited.

• "Uh-oh, I just made an illegal turn!" the man said.

• "Aw, Dad, it's okay," the son replied. "The police car right behind us did the same thing."

Illus: Speaking of living in the fast lane, someone listed these things that we sometimes do in our haste. They say you know you're living in the fast lane when…

• You accidentally enter your password on the microwave

• You email the person who works at the desk next to you

• Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have email addresses

• You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home

• Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go home and get it

Listen, people are not slowing down; the statistics show they are going faster!

Illus: Professor Richard Wiseman has announced the results of an international study in collaboration with the British Council to measure the speed of life.

The experiment, conducted by British Council researchers, secretly timed thousands of pedestrians’ speed of walking across the globe, including London, Madrid, Singapore, and New York.

Using identical methods to those employed in the previous work, the present day research teams discovered that the pace of life is now 10% faster than in the early 1990s.

The biggest changes were found in the Far East, with the pace of life in (China) increasing by over 20%, and Singapore showing a 30% increase, resulting in it becoming the fastest moving city in the study.

The study showed that those that lived in the slow lane had a lot less health problems than those living in the fast lane.

We live in a fast paced world and people in America today are paying a price with more heart attacks, and high blood pressure than ever before. Due to this fast pace, it has almost become accepted that we all are going to have to have open-heart surgery.

For example, has anyone ever asked you, “Have you had open heart surgery yet?” It is like something that is expected of us because we live in this fast paced world!

We not only suffer physically, but we also suffer spiritually in this fast paced world.

You see, people who live in the fast lane go crazy waiting for the red light to change. How in the world can such a person sit patiently at the feet of Jesus.

God told Israel a long time ago that He would be AS THE DEW TO HIS PEOPLE. Dew always comes in the STILLNESS OF THE NIGHT.