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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Hosea 14
Repentance
To Bring Blessing (ch. 14:1 - 9)
Verse 1 seems to be one
last plea from the Lord for God even tells the
northern kingdom in verses 2 and 3 how to return to Him.
He tells them what words to say.
"Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may
offer the fruit of our lips. These words show true
repentance, true faith, which would enable Israel
to move on into the future with their God.
Both repentance and faith are important.
You cannot have real faith until you first have real repentance,
and the message of repentance is fast becoming unpopular these days in
church circles. We must note the
acknowledgment that Beyond the acknowledgment
of sin and their gods, is the acknowledgement that God is the one they
should turn to. They can't
rely on Assyria, their traditional foe who they attempted to make peace with.
The In the first few chapters
of Hosea we saw God as a husband. Now,
in the last few chapters of Hosea we see God as In verse 4 God says that
He "will heal their waywardness and heal them freely".
With the use of the word "will", and not maybe, we know
that the healing and restoration of The last half of verse 4
says that "my anger has turned away from them".
These words cannot be speaking of the day in age in which Hosea
spoke these words because God's anger wasn't turned away.
He sent Assyria to destroy the northern kingdom of Israel. These words must have been
spoken about in a day beyond Hosea's time, which I believe is at the end
of this age. Verses 5 through 7 shows
a bit what the restoration
of Israel
will look like at the end of this age.
Hosea ends his message on a positive note.
God will be a blessing to Verse 7 speaks of men
dwelling in the shades. This
shows a pure sense of peace and security that The reference to wine in
verse 7 speaks of richness and wealth.
Israel
will have its wealth restored to them in a way it has never known.
It will make the days of King David look like days of poverty. Verse 8 has some
technical difficulties that have hindered Bible translators.
The NIV reads, "what more have I to do with idols?"
The pronoun "I" in the NIV seems to refer to God, but
that would make little sense, other than God would no longer have to
deal with The pronoun "I"
in the rest of verse 8 obviously refers to God.
God is simply saying that He is the reason for Israel's future success. No one
else will cause Verse 9 ends the book of
Hosea. He asks two simple
questions. "Who is
wise"? "Who is
discerning?" The wise
and discerning are those who pay attention to the Word of the Lord as
seen in this book, and I'm convinced that the Word of the Lord in this
book is just as much for us today as it was for I dare say that in this
generation in which I write these words, we are far from wise and far
from discerning. We are
constantly rejecting and ignoring the Word of the Lord. Hosea ends by God saying
"that ways of the Lord are right and that the righteous walk in
them". It is clear and
simple. Those who obey the
Lord walk righteously and those who don't are "rebellious and
stumble". As far
as I am concerned, much of the western world right now is stumbling
because we are not living righteously.
May the message of the
book of Hosea be widely proclaimed throughout our lands.
It's the message we need to hear and obey in these unrighteous
days in which we live.
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