�M NOR�PROPHETS
Twelve
Men & God’s Timeless Messages
THE SO CALLED
Summarizing Studies So Far…
Genesis | 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Study Outline
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SEARCH “Minor Prophet_Hosea”
Series Overview
History
The Prophet
Literature
History
The Prophet
ASSYRIA
God sent the prophets when “plain preaching” no longer worked.
Literature
Steadfast love �loving-kindness�covenant loyalty
Exodus 34:6-7 | “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, (7) keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Steadfast love �loving-kindness�covenant loyalty
Idolatry is not simply a breach of a contractual agreement. Idolatry is spiritual adultery – a breach of the most intimate kind. (Furh & Yates, p.86).
[Figurative language] invites the reader to feel God’s suffering over His beloved people. (Furh & Yates, p.61)
Hosea Background
hôshêa‛
Yahweh saves / salvation
Hosea 1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
760 to 750 BC
(30-40 years before Assyrian Invasion. A contemporary of Amos.)
Amos highlights actions of injustice.
Hosea highlights relationship & idolatry.
Amos and Hosea are “fraternal twin prophets”
4:12 | My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore. (13) They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good… (17) Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone.
8:8-10 | Israel is swallowed up; already they are among the nations as a useless vessel. (9) For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild donkey wandering alone; Ephraim has hired lovers. (10) Though they hire allies among the nations, I will soon gather them up. And the king and princes shall soon writhe because of the tribute.
Yahweh
“Ephraim”
The word “whore” (ESV, KJV) is used 17 times in Hosea out of 55 times in the entire Bible. This is 31% of the times it is used.
The sudden shifts in mood match the sudden shifts in emotion that a husband might experience toward a faithless wife. (Schwab, p.189)
Hosea is saturated in the language of reversal. (Furh & Yates, p.60)
Observe the “literary whiplash” of the emotional shifts.
God will express rage and anger. How does that make you feel?
Psalm 68:5-6 | Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.. God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.
Unsafe / Insecure
Safe / Secure
Hosea Exegesis
Hosea has fourteen chapters. No one agrees on how to divide it.
1 – 3
Hosea & Gomer
A reflection of
Yahweh & Israel
4-14
The tug-of-war between Yahweh’s desire for grace and His inclination for justice (Fuhr & Yates, p.61)
Hosea 1:2-9
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” (3) So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. (4) And the LORD said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. (5) And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.” (6) She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. (7) But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.” (8) When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. (9) And the LORD said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
Hosea 1:2-9
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” (3) So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. (4) And the LORD said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. (5) And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.” (6) She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. (7) But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.” (8) When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. (9) And the LORD said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
Hosea 1:2-9
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” (3) So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. (4) And the LORD said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. (5) And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.” (6) She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. (7) But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.” (8) When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. (9) And the LORD said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
Hosea 1:2-9
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” (3) So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. (4) And the LORD said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. (5) And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.” (6) She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. (7) But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.” (8) When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. (9) And the LORD said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
Hosea + Gomer
(Yahweh Saves + Completion)
Jezreel Lo Ruhamah Lo Ammi
God Scatters No Mercy Not My People
Hosea 1:10-11
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”
(11) And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.
Hosea 2
(2) “Plead with your mother, plead— for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; (3) lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst…
Hosea 2
(19) And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. (20) I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD. (21) “And in that day I will answer, declares the LORD, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, (22) and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel, (23) and I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”
Hosea 3:1-5
And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” (2) So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. (3) And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” (4) For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. (5) Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.
Hosea 3:1-5
And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” (2) So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. (3) And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” (4) For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. (5) Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.
1 – 3
Hosea & Gomer
A reflection of
Yahweh & Israel
4-14
The tug-of-war between Yahweh’s desire for grace and His inclination for justice
Hosea 4
Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a controversy (legal case, NASB) with the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; (2) there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
Hosea 4-6
4:6 | My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
Amos 3:12 Thus says the LORD: “As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who dwell in Samaria be rescued…
Joel 3:16 | The LORD roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake. But the LORD is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel.
Hosea 5:14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
6:4 | What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. (5) Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.
(6) For I desire steadfast love and not
sacrifice, the knowledge of God
rather than burnt offerings.
6:4 | What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. (5) Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.
(6) For I desire steadfast love and not
sacrifice, the knowledge of God
rather than burnt offerings.
6:4 | What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. (5) Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light.
(6) For I desire steadfast love and not
sacrifice, the knowledge of God
rather than burnt offerings.
Steadfast love �loving-kindness�covenant loyalty
Exodus 34:6-7 | “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, (7) keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Steadfast love �loving-kindness�covenant loyalty
Idolatry is not simply a breach of a contractual agreement. Idolatry is spiritual adultery – a breach of the most intimate kind.
(Furh & Yates, p.86).
Take a breath. Chapter 11 is tough.
Hosea 11:1-11
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. (2) The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.
(3) Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. (4) I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.
Hosea 11:1-11
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. (2) The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.
(3) Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. (4) I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.
Hosea 11:1-11
(5) They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. (6) The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels. (7) My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.
Hosea 11:1-11
(8) How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? [Cities near Sodom & Gomorrah; Deut. 29:23] My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.
(9) I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.
[Figurative language] invites the reader to feel God’s suffering over His beloved people. (Furh & Yates, p.61)
Hosea 11:10-11 They shall go after the LORD; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD.
Hosea 7:11 Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
Hosea 5:14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
Hosea 11:12
Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit, but Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One.
THE �FINAL�CHAPTER
Hosea 14:1-9
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. (2) Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to him,
“Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. (3) Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.”
(4) I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. … (8) O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit…
Hosea 14:1-9
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. (2) Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to him,
“Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. (3) Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.”
(4) I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. … (8) O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit…
Hosea 14:1-9
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. (2) Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to him,
“Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. (3) Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.”
(4) I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. … (8) O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit…
Hosea 14:1-9
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. (2) Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to him,
“Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. (3) Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.”
(4) I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. … (8) O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit…
God divorced the northern kingdom.
2 Kings 17:5-23 | Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. (6) In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. (7) And this occurred because …
God divorced the northern kingdom.
2 Kings 17:5-23 | Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. (6) In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. (7) And this occurred because …
(7) This occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods (8) and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. (9) And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. (10) They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, (11) and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the LORD carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger, (12) and they served idols, of which the LORD had said to them, “You shall not do this.”
(13) Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”
(14) But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God. (15) They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them. (16) And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.
(17) And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. (18) Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only. (19) Judah also did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. (20) And the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight. (21) When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD and made them commit great sin. (22) The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them, (23) until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.
Hosea 14:9 Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.
What are we to make of this?
How is God faithful to His covenant while sending Israel away? Read Romans 9-11.
Behold the goodness and the severity
of God
Looking Backward and Forward
Bible Literacy is crucial to maturing in the gospel.
NT Connection
Hosea Passage
Hosea 1:1-2 | When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.
Hosea 6:6 | For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Hosea 10:8 | Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed; Thorn and thistle will grow on their altars; Then they will say to the mountains, "Cover us!" And to the hills, "Fall on us!"
JESUS EATS WITH SINNERS
Hosea 2:23 | "I will sow her for Myself in the land. I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion, And I will say to those who were not My people, 'You are My people!' And they will say, 'You are my God!'"
Hosea 13:14 | Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from My sight.
Hosea 1:10 | Yet the number of the sons of Israel Will be like the sand of the sea, Which cannot be measured or numbered; And in the place Where it is said to them, "You are not My people," It will be said to them, "You are the sons of the living God."
Hosea 11:1 / Matthew 2:13-15
Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” (14) And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt (15) and remained there until the death of Herod.
This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
Hosea 6:6 / Matthew 9:9-13
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. (13) Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
(7) And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.
JESUS EATS WITH SINNERS
Hosea 6:6 / Matthew 12:1-8
Hosea 2:3 / Romans 9:22-26
(25) As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’” (26) “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
Hosea 11:1-2 / Luke 15:11-13
And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. (12) And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. (13) Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.
Hosea 13:14 /�1 Corinthians 15:55
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (55)“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
Hosea 10:8 / Luke 23:30 & Rev. 6:16
Luke 23:30 | "Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'fall on us,' and to the hills, 'cover us.'
Revelation 6:16| and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;
Hosea 1:10 / 1 Peter 2:10
…for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy…
Hosea offers us the opportunity to reflect.
If Israel’s sin was like adultery, how does my sin affect God?
Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, (5) and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, (6) and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt [open shame, KJV].
Hebrews 10:26-31 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, (27) but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. (28) Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. (29) How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? (30) For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” (31) It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Is there no hope?
Consider the illumination of reconciliation.
Genesis | 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Ephesians 5:22-33
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. (23) For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. (24) Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (25) Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, (26) that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, (27) so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (28) In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (29) For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, (30) because we are members of his body. (31) “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (32) This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (33) However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Revelation 2:4-5
(4) But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. (5) Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Conclusion
Steadfast love �loving-kindness�covenant loyalty
Exodus 34:6-7 | “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, (7) keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Steadfast love �loving-kindness�covenant loyalty
Idolatry is not simply a breach of a contractual agreement. Idolatry is spiritual adultery – a breach of the most intimate kind.
(Furh & Yates, p.86).
Hosea 3:1-5
And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” (2) So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. (3) And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” (4) For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. (5) Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.
REMEMBER…
You are not Hosea
You are Gomer
Hosea 3:1-5
And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” (2) So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. (3) And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” (4) For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. (5) Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.
Hosea 3:1-5
And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” (2) So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. (3) And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” (4) For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. (5) Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.
Hosea 3:1-5
And the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” (2) So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. (3) And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” (4) For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. (5) Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.
How
can
I
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you
up?