A Pageant of Recovered Love
Hosea 2-3
Skip Heitzig
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Hosea 2 (NKJV™) | |
1 | Say to your brethren, 'My people,' And to your sisters, 'Mercy is shown.' |
2 | "Bring charges against your mother, bring charges; For she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband! Let her put away her harlotries from her sight, And her adulteries from between her breasts; |
3 | Lest I strip her naked And expose her, as in the day she was born, And make her like a wilderness, And set her like a dry land, And slay her with thirst. |
4 | "I will not have mercy on her children, For they are the children of harlotry. |
5 | For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has behaved shamefully. For she said, 'I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my linen, My oil and my drink.' |
6 | "Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, And wall her in, So that she cannot find her paths. |
7 | She will chase her lovers, But not overtake them; Yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go and return to my first husband, For then it was better for me than now.' |
8 | For she did not know That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil, And multiplied her silver and gold--Which they prepared for Baal. |
9 | "Therefore I will return and take away My grain in its time And My new wine in its season, And will take back My wool and My linen, Given to cover her nakedness. |
10 | Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, And no one shall deliver her from My hand. |
11 | I will also cause all her mirth to cease, Her feast days, Her New Moons, Her Sabbaths--All her appointed feasts. |
12 | "And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, Of which she has said, 'These are my wages that my lovers have given me.' So I will make them a forest, And the beasts of the field shall eat them. |
13 | I will punish her For the days of the Baals to which she burned incense. She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry, And went after her lovers; But Me she forgot," says the LORD. |
14 | "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Will bring her into the wilderness, And speak comfort to her. |
15 | I will give her her vineyards from there, And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; She shall sing there, As in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. |
16 | "And it shall be, in that day," Says the LORD, "That you will call Me 'My Husband,' And no longer call Me 'My Master,' |
17 | For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals, And they shall be remembered by their name no more. |
18 | In that day I will make a covenant for them With the beasts of the field, With the birds of the air, And with the creeping things of the ground. Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth, To make them lie down safely. |
19 | "I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy; |
20 | I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, And you shall know the LORD. |
21 | "It shall come to pass in that day That I will answer," says the LORD; "I will answer the heavens, And they shall answer the earth. |
22 | The earth shall answer With grain, With new wine, And with oil; They shall answer Jezreel. |
23 | Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth, And I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; Then I will say to those who were not My people, 'You are My people!' And they shall say, 'You are my God!'" |
Hosea 3 (NKJV™) | |
1 | Then the LORD said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans." |
2 | So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. |
3 | And I said to her, "You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man--so, too, will I be toward you." |
4 | For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. |
5 | Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days. |
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved.
Are you running from circumstances that appear hopeless? Are you feeling the tugging on you heart that you can't quite understand? Well these all may be the prompting of the Holy Spirit of God to get your attention. Hosea and Gomer had a marriage that was difficult and full of impossible issues but God had a purpose for it all. Their marriage was a picture to the people of Israel of how we should not treat God. Gomer had freewill and made a bad choices but Hosea stayed faithful in the midst of it all…, why? Because Hosea listened to the grace of God and was sustained. You may be going through difficult times, circumstances of hardships, but if you listen to the prompting of God you will be sustained, but if you reject His promptings you could suffer and take the wrong paths. God will demonstrate His love to you in every way but it's up to you to recognize it and choose whom you will serve, God or man.
Why do we call Jonah, Amos, Obadiah, Malachi and the others the "minor" prophets? It certainly isn't because their messages were less important! Prophets are like people holding a wire from heaven and wire to the earth, with God speaking through them. At times, God used these unique men to proclaim His truth, or to denounce men's sin, or to predict the future, both near and far-off. Other times, He used them to show His truth by demonstration, through events in their lives. In this in-depth series, Pastor Skip Heitzig presents important truths about these little books with big messages.
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