“Mine heart is turned within me.” Hosea 11:8
Conquerors, that plunder a conquered city, carry away the wealth of it, and, after some time, often return to burn it. God will not thus utterly destroy Israel.
“For I am God, and not man.”
“I will not carry it so far as to make a second destruction of Ephraim; so as to cut off those who escaped the first infliction of my punishments, and thereby wholly destroy them.”
God’s heart here, expressed, an anthropomorphism, gives Him human traits for our understanding. In Hosea 11, God yearns for His people’s return and recoils at their reluctance. God’s chosen, unlike Admah and Zeboim, will not be utterly vanquished from the earth.
Instead, God tells us,
“Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. “Hosea 2:6 -7
God makes the road of idolatry a rude awakening and so encourages their return.
and then, God says:
“I will allure her and lead her to the wilderness, and speak to her tenderly. There I will give back her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor into a gateway of hope. There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call Me ‘my Husband,’ and no longer call Me ‘my Master.’ Hosea 2:14- 16
Frankly, Father waits patiently for His wayward child, and shows them the hard side of backsliding.
and,
“Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Go show love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and offer raisin cakes to idols.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. “Hosea 3:1-2
Friends, God has also a will toward those outside the family.
2Peter 3:9 teaches us, ‘The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
The atonement made at Calvary’s cross, by Christ the Son of God, reveals a heart of love and pity for an unlimited world of sinners.
Beloved, make no mistake about it, God loves and pities all the people of his creation. Unfortunately there will come a day when the longsuffering will end. God must fulfill His promises of providing a better world. To do that, undesirable elements will be removed, including those refusing God’s way of escape through the Blood of Christ shed.
Oh God, help us to reach out to those without. Soon, it will be too late. love ya
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