11/05/2011 - The obedience of a servant

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“The word of the LORD that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.” (Hosea 1:1)
Hosea, the last prophet of Israel, prophesied in the kingdom of the ten tribes just like Isaiah, and he practiced his ministry in those days when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah reigned in Judah. Jeroboam II was king in Israel. That was the most prosperous time of that Israelite nation; yet, its people plunged deeper and deeper into occultism. The kings of Israel irritated the Most High with the witchcraft they overtly practiced. So, during his almost sixty-year old ministry, that prophet denounced Israel’s idolatry by comparing it to adultery.
Following God’s command, Hosea met up with prostitutes and took one of them, Gomer, as his wife. Such an act carried a message in itself: the land had committed harlotry. Hosea had many children with that wife, and their names conveyed messages to his people; messages given by the Lord Himself. Each one symbolized a huge blow that the kingdom of the North would suffer because they insisted on doing devilish things and kept on failing to fulfil the divine plan.
Hosea and Gomer’s first son was called Jezreel – which is the same name of a city and a valley of Israel where Ahab’s governmental palace was located. The message within that name was that God would avenge Jezreel’s blood – referring, perhaps, to Jezebel’s wickedness when she had Naboth, the Jezreelite, stoned in order to take his vine and give it to Ahab (refer to II Kings 9:22-37). So, our Lord stated that He’d put an end to the reign of the house of Israel because of its ruthlessness and its idolatry, and Hosea saw all those prophecies being fulfilled.
Later on, Gomer gave him a daughter named “Not Pitied”, which revealed a hard message: the Most High wouldn’t favor the house of Israel any longer by forgiving it. Poor Israelites! They wouldn’t have the mercy of their God any more. I pity those who receive a similar
word because it’s better to have our Lord as the forgiving God; the One who’s always ready to favor and redeem us. However, when a prophecy like that takes place in someone’s life, that person will suffer a lot. The Almighty God always takes an action against those who insist on making mistakes.
His wife gave birth to another heir who was called “Not my people”. They weren’t God’s people any longer at that point, and the Lord wasn’t their God either. We must strive so that nothing similar can ever happen either to us or to our dearest ones. We need to acknowledge our transgressions now and go straight back into our Father’s arms because He’s patient and willing to forgive. We need to confess all our sins for us to be fully redeemed by the Most High before it’s too late.
Hosea was used to spread the message about the coming of the Son of God and about His subsequent death in favor of mankind. His prophecy refers to what Jesus did on the Calvary where He bought us for our Heavenly Father. Out of those two peoples Christ made only one: His own special people, His private ownership. The spiritual Israel would be so huge that it was even compared to the sand of the sea. Our Creator Himself said that we’re the people of the living God.
Although Hosea didn’t succeed in making Israel go back to the Lord he was obedient and carried out all the tasks assigned to him. All those who belong to God must do the same: though they may not see the results they expect in the work they do for the Lord, they need to keep in mind that God knows why He called them and assigned them with the mission of speaking on His behalf. It’s important to remember that we belong to God’s people and that we must be faithful to Him by doing what we were told to do.
In Christ, with love,
R. R. Soares