SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/5/2015
10:06 PM
My Worship Time Focus: God
Pronounces the Sentence PT-2B
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Hosea
10:1-15
Message of the
verses: “1 Israel is a luxuriant vine; He produces fruit
for himself. The more his fruit, The more altars he made; The richer his land,
The better he made the sacred pillars. 2 Their heart is faithless; Now they must bear their guilt.
The LORD will break down their altars And destroy their sacred pillars. 3 Surely now they will say,
"We have no king, For we do not revere the LORD. As for the king, what can
he do for us?" 4 They speak mere words, With worthless oaths they make
covenants; And judgment sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the
field. 5 The inhabitants of Samaria will fear For the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, its
people will mourn for it, And its idolatrous priests will cry out over it, Over
its glory, since it has departed from it. 6 The thing itself will be carried to
Assyria As tribute to King Jareb; Ephraim will be seized with shame And Israel
will be ashamed of its own counsel. 7 Samaria will be cut off with her king
Like a stick on the surface of the water. 8 Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be
destroyed; Thorn and thistle will grow on their altars; Then they will say to
the mountains, "Cover us!" And to the hills, "Fall on us!"
9 From the days of Gibeah you have sinned,
O Israel; There they stand! Will not the battle against the sons of iniquity
overtake them in Gibeah? 10 When it is My desire, I will chastise them; And the
peoples will be gathered against them When they are bound for their double
guilt. 11 Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh, But I will come
over her fair neck with a yoke; I will harness Ephraim, Judah will plow, Jacob
will harrow for himself. 12 Sow with a
view to righteousness, Reap in accordance with kindness; Break up your fallow
ground, For it is time to
seek the LORD Until He comes to rain righteousness on you. 13 You have plowed wickedness,
you have reaped injustice, You have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your
way, in your numerous warriors, 14 Therefore a tumult will arise among your people,
And all your fortresses will be destroyed, As Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on
the day of battle, When mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. 15
Thus it will be done to you at Bethel because of your great wickedness. At dawn
the king of Israel will be completely cut off.”
This seventh sub-point is entitled “Agriculture” as this
is a familiar thing in the lives of the children of Israel, and that is what
the Lord is using to help Him pronounce sentence on them. We looked at the first half of this sub-point
yesterday and we will try and finish this sub-point in today’s SD.
In 10:1 we read of the selfish fruit that Israel produces
as “the more his fruit, The more altars he made; The richer his land, The
better he made the sacred pillars.” Dr.
Wiersbe writes an endnote on this verse:
“The vine as a symbol of the Jewish nation is also found in Deuteronomy
32:32; Psalm 80:8-11; Isaiah 5:1-7; and Jeremiah 2:21). The vine also pictures Christ and His church
(John 15) and the Gentile world system ripening for judgment in the last days
(Rev. 14:17-20).”
We read the following agricultural image in 10:4 “They
speak mere words, With worthless oaths they make covenants; And judgment
sprouts like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.” As we look at this verse we see the same
thing happening in our country today as Dr. Wiersbe writes “People couldn’t
trust one another and few were keeping their promises; there, they had to sue
on another to get what they deserved.
The multiplying of laws and lawsuits is one evidence that integrity and
credibility are vanishing from society.”
We see the final agricultural image from verse eight “Also the high places of Aven,
the sin of Israel, will be destroyed; Thorn and thistle will grow on their
altars; Then they will say to the mountains, "Cover us!" And to the
hills, "Fall on us!"” As
far as the last statement we have seen or will see it in our study from the
book of Revelation. We see in this verse
that Israel’s false idol worship will be destroyed and turned into weeds.
In both 9:9 and 10:9 we see a phrase “the days of Gibeah,”
and this reference speaks of the awful sin that the men of Gibeah did that is
found in the book of Judges chapters 19-21.
These two chapters are very difficult reading as the men of that city
rapped a women which caused her death.
She was actually a concubine of man who did not take care of her as he
should have and after her death he cut her dead body into twelve pieces and
sent them to the different tribes of Israel.
As a result of this the nation attacked Benjamin and came close to
destroying that tribe from Israel.
In verses 11-15 we see that in the closing of this
chapter Israel is compared to a young heifer who enjoys treading out the grain
because she likes to work and eat at the same time. After this she is yoked to another beast and
is forced to work hard. The same will
happen shortly to Israel when the Assyrians come upon them and destroy them.
Now as we read Hosea we see that there is a theme that
continues when we are reading Israel’s prophetic, and even in the book of
Psalms, and that is that the Lord will offer one last time to repent and this
is seen in verse 12 “Sow
with a view to righteousness, Reap in accordance with kindness; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the LORD
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.” Jesus spoke similar words in Matthew
3:1-12.
We know from history that the nation did not repent and
in 722 BC they were destroyed by the Assyrian army and taken into
captivity. Dr. Wiersbe ends this section
by quoting a verse from Proverbs and also Psalms: “Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a
disgrace to any people (Pr. 14:34).” “Blessed
is the nation whose God is the LORD, The people whom He has chosen for His own
inheritance (Psalm 33:12).” As our
nation celebrates its 239th rear these are verses that we need to
remember or else what happened to Israel will happen to us.
7/5/2015 10:43 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment