Hosea 4:1-3
1 Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites,
because the LORD has a charge to bring
against you who live in the land:
"There is no faithfulness, no love,
no acknowledgment of God in the land.
2 There is only cursing, lying and murder,
stealing and adultery;
they break all bounds,
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
3 Because of this the land mourns,
and all who live in it waste away;
the beasts of the field and the birds of the air
and the fish of the sea are dying.
Reading farther I am touched by the image of God chasing after His people, desiring them to turn back even though they continue to be adulterous.
Hosea 4:16
16 The Israelites are stubborn,
like a stubborn heifer.
How then can the LORD pasture them
like lambs in a meadow?
God wants to provide for us with such tenderness and we just throw His love back in His face.
This part really gets to me, and makes me weep as I grasp the extreme measures taken by God in His desire to have us return to Him.
Hosea 5:12-15
12 I am like a moth to Ephraim,
like rot to the people of Judah.
13 "When Ephraim saw his sickness,
and Judah his sores,
then Ephraim turned to Assyria,
and sent to the great king for help.
But he is not able to cure you,
not able to heal your sores.
14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
like a great lion to Judah.
I will tear them to pieces and go away;
I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them.
until they admit their guilt.
And they will seek my face;
in their misery they will earnestly seek me.
And yet, Israel continued to be unfaithful. But at the end God, out of His HOLINESS and in the face of His WRATH chooses to be merciful. Why? I still cannot understand.
Hosea 11:8-9.
8 "How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboiim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.
9 I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man—
the Holy One among you.
I will not come in wrath.
This passage also makes me think of the U.S.
Hosea 13:15-16
15 even though he thrives among his brothers.
An east wind from the LORD will come,
blowing in from the desert;
his spring will fail
and his well dry up.
His storehouse will be plundered
of all its treasures.
16 The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open."
Hosea 7:13
13 Woe to them,
because they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them,
because they have rebelled against me!
I long to redeem them
but they speak lies against me.
Hosea 8:7
7 "They sow the wind
and reap the whirlwind.
The stalk has no head;
it will produce no flour.
Were it to yield grain,
foreigners would swallow it up.
Hosea 9:7
7 The days of punishment are coming,
the days of reckoning are at hand.
Let Israel know this.
Because your sins are so many
and your hostility so great,
the prophet is considered a fool,
the inspired man a maniac.
Oh God have mercy on us. Do not destroy the righteous with the unrighteous!
I lost about $4,000 of my mutual fund due to the current economic crisis. I withdrew the remainder out of fear of losing it all. It's strange though, even though I know it's a sizable amount of money, I don't really feel as if my circumstances have changed at all. I am still a child of my Heavenly Father, resting in the shadow of His wing within the comfort of His pasture. I would not exchange this wealth for any of the comforts of the world!
Praise be to God, who loves and has mercy on unworthy sinful man!
~ H.M.
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