God's Love Demonstrated by His Long-Suffering (Hosea 11:5-7)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/13/2015 10:49 PM

My Worship Time                               Focus:  God’s Love Demonstrated by His Long-Suffering

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                 Reference:  Hosea 11:5-7

            Message of the verses:  “5 They will not return to the land of Egypt; But Assyria-he will be their king Because they refused to return to Me. 6 The sword will whirl against their cities, And will demolish their gate bars And consume them because of their counsels. 7 So My people are bent on turning from Me. Though they call them to the One on high, None at all exalts Him.”

            As I was studying the attribute of “long-suffering” which is one of God’s attributes the author wrote that this attribute had to do with a person’s sins that God would be long-suffering with their sins and that is what God did for Israel during this time.  Just a bit of review and that is that Israel was called the Northern Kingdom when the nation split after the death of Solomon.  However when the first king of the Northern Kingdom decided to sin against the Lord by making a new “religion” so that the people would not go down to Jerusalem to worship it angered some of the people and many left the Northern Kingdom and went to the Southern Kingdom so that they could worship the Lord in the way that they were supposed to. Even though the Assyrian’s defeated the Northern Kingdom, Israel, there were still all tribes represented in the Southern Kingdom.

            When Israel was coming out of Egypt the Lord was so upset with them that He told Moses that He would destroy them and begin a new nation through Moses, but Moses expressed to the Lord if that happened then the nations around them would think that the God of Israel was not strong enough to bring His people into the land as He has promised to do.  It was understandable what the Lord was upset with Israel when they came out of Egypt for they had done many things wrong as they were coming out, even sinning while Moses was up on the Mountain getting the Ten Commandments from the Lord.  Israel even wanted to go back to Egypt and thus back into slavery and this pictures believers today who after they have been saved want to go back into their old life style, which amounts to slavery to sin.  Hosea tells Israel that they will be in a new bondage under the Assyrians because of their sin.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “Israel refused to repent, so the nation had to go into captivity.  They made plans without consulting God, so their defense would fall before the invaders.  The only time they called on God was when they were in trouble, and God graciously helped them; but now the end had come.”

7/13/2015 11:05 PM