Hosea 11:5-7. God says his people will return to the land of Egypt and Assyria shall be their king "because they have refused to return to me." Their cities will be destroyed by the sword, which will "devour them in their fortresses." "My people are bent on turning away from me; so they are appointed the yoke, and none shall remove it."

All of our punishment, our exile, our misery, and our unhappiness, comes from this stubborn refusal to return to God. We were given everything we could ever possibly want or need, including perfect love, yet we stubbornly sought more, we sought things that we thought would make us happy. This is the story of the Fall, but it is also the story of each of our lives.

Often, when we realize that the things that we sought do not make us happy, and we find ourselves miserable, we cling to them even more tightly and seek more and more of the same or other things that we think will make us happy. God keeps offering us forgiveness and mercy and a return to the good, but we don't want to acknowledge that we are wrong, and that we have been pursuing the wrong things, so we refuse to return to him and we go further and further down the path, away from him and into our own pride and misery.

This behavior weakens us individually and as a nation and makes us vulnerable to our enemies. As sinful individuals, full of pride, we open ourselves up to the devil's empty promises and we let him draw us further from our loving Father. As a prideful, stubborn, and sinful nation, we open ourselves up to influence from foreign powers as well as the principalities and powers of evil.

At some point (and I think it has arrived for many of us and for our country) God lets us have what we choose. If we have chosen not to return to him, we get the yoke, the sword, violence, decay, and exile. None can remove it but him and he will not until we return to him.