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Paradigm Shift
Personal Note: It has been a while since my last post. A great deal has been going on, but rest assured I have not forgotten the readership here and for those interested I do plan to continue this study of the minor prophets. What follows is the next installment in the Hosea series…
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A Purpose in Suffering – Hosea 3
Hos 3:1 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.”
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God Heals Relationships
In the previous post we read about what looks like God's wrath in exposing sin. The reason God exposes sin is so it can be dealt with – realization, repentence, and restoration. The previous passage dealt with realization. Anticipating repentence, the rest of this chapter of Hosea shows the mighty power of God in restoring the broken relationship. We broke it, but God alone is able to restore it.
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Northern Exposure
Hos 2:10-12 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts. And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, ‘These are my wages, which my lovers have given me.’ I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour them.
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He Never Leaves or Forsakes Us – Hos 2:8-9
Help Was There All Along Hos 2:8 And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.
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Reaching Bottom and Breaking the Cycle – Hos 2:6-7
Reaching Bottom Hos 2:6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. A hedge is a barrier. God is going to put a barrier up to end Israel’s prosperity and thus its idolatry. Even today God blocks our way when we turn from Him so that we become miserable, sensing our loss, when we turn from righteousness to the ways of the world.
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One Sin Leads to the Next – Hos 2:4-5
Hos 2:4-5 Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
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The Importance of Intercession – Hos 2:1-3
The second chapter of Hosea is written in poetic form. The language of this literary style is generally more figurative than straight prose. This does not mean we can take it less seriously, but it does mean that details may be more illustrative than concrete. The theme is what’s critical. In other words, the idea is to look at the forest, not the trees. The theme is God’s sovereignty in exposing sin and the people’s choice to accept sin’s exposure and repent or face exposure to conquest by a merciless enemy. Ultimately God sees at least some who rejected Him will return and be fully restored.
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Unlikely Restoration – Hosea 1:4-10
Jezreel – First Child of the Whore Hos 1:4-5 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. And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”
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The Gift of Dysfunction – Hosea 1:2-3
Hosea Commanded to Marry a Whore Hos 1:2 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.”