SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/6/2015
10:15 PM
My Worship Time Focus: God’s Love
Promised PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Hosea
2:14-23
Message of the
verses: “14 "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring her into the wilderness
And speak kindly to her. 15 “Then I will give her her vineyards from there, And the valley of
Achor as a door of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth,
As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. 16 "It will come
about in that day," declares the LORD, "That you will call Me Ishi
And will no longer call Me Baali. 17 “For I will remove the names of the Baals from her
mouth, So that they will be mentioned by their names no more. 18 “In that day I will also make a
covenant for them With the beasts of the field, The birds of the sky And the
creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword and war from the land, And will make them lie down
in safety. 19 “I will betroth
you to Me forever; Yes, I
will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, In
lovingkindness and in compassion, 20 And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the LORD.
21 “It will come about in that day that I will respond," declares the LORD. "I will respond to the
heavens, and they will respond to the earth, 22, the earth will respond to the
grain, to the new wine and to the oil, And they will respond to Jezreel. 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!’"”
We begin the last main point in Dr. Wiersbe’s outline
which he has entitled “Hosea: God Is
Love” (Hosea 2:14-3:5). He begins this
commentary by reminding us that “The three children have taught us about the
grace of God, and Gomer has taught us about the holiness of God. Now Hosea will teach s about the love of God.
‘Hosea takes his place among the greatest lovers of all
the ages,’ wrote Kyle M. Yates. ‘His
love was so strong that the vilest behavior could not dull it…Gomer broke his
heart but she made it possible for him to give to the world a picture of the
heart of the divine Lover.’”
We see many “I will’s” in this passage speaking of what
God is going to do for the nation of Israel mostly this will be done in the
Millennial Kingdom. We will look at a
number of these “I will’s” in this SD and then look at more in our next SD.
“I will allure”
is the first one and it can be found in verse fourteen. God does not force people to love Him, but he
does allure them to love Him or He woos them to love Him. We cannot love God unless He first love us
which is what He did when He sent His Son to the cross to take our place there
and die for us there. As we begin to
learn about God in His Word and understand all the wonderful things that He has
done for us and also learn about the attributes that He has we will then begin
to love Him. We see that the Lord
reminds His people how He led them through the wilderness after taking them out
of Egypt, and then He promises to take them into His promised Kingdom as both
of these are proofs that He loves them.
We will look at one more of these “I will’s “in this SD,
the “I will give” which is found in verse fifteen. God promises the children of Israel that He
will guarantee a return of them to the land of Israel as he states in “the
valley of Achor.” Dr. Wiersbe writes “To
Israel, the Valley of Achor (trouble) was the place where Achan stole from God
and brought shameful defeat to Israel’s army (Josh. 7), but that memory would
be erased from their minds. The valley
would become a ‘door of hope’ through which Israel would enter into a new
life. The experience would produce
singing as when Israel escaped from Egypt and saw her enemies defeated before
their very eyes (Ex. 14-15).” Isaiah
writes in 65:10 “"Sharon will be a pasture land for flocks, And the valley of Achor a resting place for herds,
For My people who seek Me.” Dr. Wiersbe
concludes as he speaks of Isaiah 65:10 “This is an Old Testament version of
Romans 8:28, for only the Lord can take defeat and shame and turn it into
victory and glory.”
6/6/2015 10:42 PM
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