I will betroth you to Me in
faithfulness,
And you shall know the LORD. (Hosea 2:20)
On July 4, 1776, America’s Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of
Independence. It begins, “When
in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve
the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among
the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of
Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of
mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation. We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and
the pursuit of Happiness…” and concludes by appealing to God, the Supreme Judge
of the world and says, “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our
sacred Honor.” Indeed, Providence smiled
upon them and America was birthed with the blessing of God. He has been faithful through our meteoric
rise, but we have been unfaithful to Him.
Systematically, we are stripping away all reference to God from the
public arena. That vacuum is filled by paganism,
Islam and the cults, even as Christianity is held up to contempt. There are some lessons for us from ancient
Israel. God brought them into a land
flowing with milk and honey, but they spurned Him for false gods. Hosea has a message for such people.
THE LOVE OF GOD SEEN IN A MARITAL ILLUSTRATION (Chapters
1-3). These chapters present the broken home of Hosea (1:1-11). His marriage would be a living message—a
picture of the sermon he preached. Hosea
was commanded to marry Gomer. Although I
do not think she was a harlot at the time, it was in her heart. She began to cheat on Hosea. In fact she has children, which aren’t even
Hosea’s (v.8-9). Night after night of
shameful living took its toll (2:1-13).
Having all those children affected her figure. Time and gravity set in and she was not the
beauty she once was, and her lovers began to desert her (v.6-7). Picture this: Gomer has sold herself into
slavery to avoid starvation. Hosea is
commanded to go and buy this cheater and bring her home! He will forgive her and restore her
(2:14-3:5). She has been faithless, but
he will be faithful to his promise. This
experience illustrated the relationship of God and Israel.
THE LOVE OF GOD SHOWN IN THE SPIRITUAL APPLICATION (Chapters
4-14). Gomer broke Hosea’s heart. Israel broke God’s. They treated God as Gomer did Hosea (4:1-19). Reading these verses is like reading the
newspaper or watching the TV today.
These same sins are epidemic in America!
We thumb our nose at God; we shake our fist at Him; we bite the hand
that feeds us! Just like Gomer trying to
appeal to her lovers, so Israel looked to man rather than God for
deliverance. Don’t we try to do
that? God would break them (5:1-13:16). He will drive us to our knees, if we don’t go
willingly.
As Hosea restored Gomer, so God would restore Israel
(14:1-9). The promise remains, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to
you.” It is a personal
response. If enough believers get right
with God, a church can be revived. If
enough churches are revived, a nation can be restored!
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