Monday, June 1, 2015

The New Names (Hosea 1:10-2:1)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/1/2015 10:11 PM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  The New Names

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Hosea 1:10-2:1

            Message of the verses:  “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." 11 And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will be gathered together, And they will appoint for themselves one leader, And they will go up from the land, For great will be the day of Jezreel.  1 Say to your brothers, "Ammi," and to your sisters, "Ruhamah.’”

            What we see in this passage is a future prophecy, and we also see the grace of God too, but another thing we see is a name change and with that I want to quote an endnote from Warren Wiersbe:  “In Scripture, a change of names is often evidence of God’s gracious working in people’s lives.  Abram became Abraham, and Sarai was renamed Sarah (Gen. 17).  Simon became Peter (John 1:42), and Saul of Tarsus became Pal (Paulus = little).”  It was only by the grace of God that is God giving these people something they did not deserve that brought about the change in them so that their names were changed.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “Not my people’ will become ‘My people,’ unloved’ will become ‘My loved one.’  These new names reflect the nation’s new relationship to God, for all of them will be ‘the sons of the living God.’”  Now we will look at another important end note:  “Paul quotes Hosea 1:10 and 2:23 in Romans 9:25-26 to prove that the salvation of the Gentiles was always a part of God’s plan.  He applies ‘not My people’ to the Gentiles as he did in Ephesians 2:11-22.  In the early church, some of the more legalistic believers thought that the Gentiles had to first become Jews before they could be Christians (Acts 10-11; 15), but Paul defended the Gospel of grace of God and proved that both Jews and Gentiles are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.”  Now I am saddened to say that there are many people who say that they are of the church who say that there is no future for the Jews, something I touched on in my SD from Revelation chapter twelve today.  They actually say that the church began in the Garden of Eden, something I find very hard to believe anyone would say. 

            These verses also tell us what we learned in our study of Ezekiel and that is that Israel and Judah will again join together and once again be one nation.  This did happen in May of 1948, but I think that this prophecy speaks of what will happen in the Millennial Kingdom headed up by Christ.  “Eze 37:19  say to them, ’Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will put them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand."’”

            Jezreel was a place of slaughter, but because of the grace of God it will be a place of sowing where God will happily sow His people in their own land and will make them prosper.  We know that many Jews still today are not living in the land of Israel, but one day they will all return there.

            Zechariah says that when the Jews recognize their Messiah at His return that this will happen.  This is also something we are studying in Revelation as we brought up Romans 11:26 today which states that “all Israel will be saved.”  Zechariah 12:1-13:1 says “10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. 11 “In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 “The land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves; 13 the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves; 14 all the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by themselves.  1 "In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity.”

            We have seen that these three children teach us about the grace of God, but in our next SD we will begin to look at what Gomer teaches us.

6/1/2015 10:38 PM    

           

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