epcblog

Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Hosea 2

Restoration is a most beautiful gift. Those who have been called “not my people” long to hear the words from the Lord, “You are my people.” Those who think that they may have been cut off from all divine mercy long to hear, “You have received mercy.” We speak these good words to one another as brothers and sisters in the family of God, and look for the day when restoration is so obvious that it will be seen in the renewal of even the land all around us. For now, we must hear God’s word of mercy and believe, and take our places together as those who worship the Lord with renewed hearts, knowing the Lord to be merciful and forgiving.

If we want the forgiveness that comes from the God of the Scriptures, we must also hear what He has said concerning the sin of His people. Israel was an unfaithful bride, and the children she gave birth to, did not show the marks of the Lord, her husband. They resembled the foreign lovers of this false woman. The warning comes here from God. Israel will be publicly exposed, and she will suffer greatly. She will yet hope in her lovers, the gods of the nations that she turned to for prosperity. She believed that the blessings that she had in the past came to her as a result of her appeals to these local deities. The true God will make it harder for her to go chasing after these others, and He will take away her ease and plenty in the hope that she will return again to Him who is her first husband. Will she remember that there were better days for her when she followed the Lord more faithfully? Will she come back home again?

The story of the unfaithfulness of Israel is a sad one. She does not seem to know how many blessings have come to her from the God’s hands, things she thought came from Baal, things she used in her worship of this false god. The Lord will not put up with this anymore. There will be no one who can stop Him when He comes to discipline this disgraceful nation. There will be great desolation upon her lands. Her festivals will be no more. She made herself beautiful for the Baals, and she forgot the Lord Her husband. The Lord would not allow this to continue.

Will the Lord’s purposes then utterly fail because of the disgrace of His people? No, amazingly He speaks here of a future time of great blessing, and of a process of wooing back His bride. He will allure her back to the place of their courtship. He will speak tenderly to her. He will give her great gifts and somehow overturn a place of destruction, making it into a new door of hope. There is a confidence expressed here that Israel will return to the Lord, calling Him her Husband again, and never mentioning the Baals. This great day of blessing is something that could never spring from her faithlessness and rebellion. It is God who will do this, somehow changing His bride through His kind affections.

This future day of covenant blessing is ultimately beyond the normal range of experience that we have in this current age. It will involve a change, not only in the heart of the Lord’s bride, but even in the entire natural world all around us. This will be something new for the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, even the insects that crawl along the ground. The life of grasping for the property of others, and the warfare that springs from that covetous root will be utterly gone, so that weapons will be abolished from the land, for they will no longer be necessary. There will be no more falling away from the love of the Lord, for His people will have an eternal betrothal to Him. There will be no more sin, oppression, hatred, and betrayal. God will bring us a new day of righteousness and love that will never end.

The Lord will speak to the new heavens and the heavens will speak to the new earth, and there will be goodness and plenty for all His people. The days of “no mercy” and “not my people” will be over forever. There will be restoration and the most complete renewal in the new creation.

We might reasonably ask this question: “At what cost paradise?” Who will pay the bill for all of this? How can Israel go from the disgrace of adultery to the blessing of the fullness of marital purity and fruitfulness? There was a price to pay. The demands of the Lord’s holiness had to be met. There would need to be One who would do what was required in order to secure the unparalleled delights of the coming age.

This is what God has done for us in the provision of His Son. This is what the cross has accomplished. There is no magic in a piece of wood. It is the Man who suffered on the tree that paid the price. No other man could have done what He did for us. He took His wife’s unfaithfulness upon Himself on that great and horrifying day. He showed us what it means to be a Husband. He died for us, yet He did this with the power of an indestructible life. Not only the perfect Man, but also perfect God, He both died and rose again. In Him we have a world of blessing. In Him we have an eternity of newness. The price was massive, but it has been paid.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 6:00 AM

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