Daily Archive

We do see a warning now in Hosea 2:9-13. We have seen Gomer’s Lust that is driving her into unfaithfulness, and we have seen God’s Love as He seeks to capture and confine His people in order to restore them. And now we see a warning of Great Loss. If Gomer (and the people of God) continue in unfaithfulness and does not come back, the consequences for sin are listed here.

“Therefore I will return and take away My grain in its time and My new wine in its season, and will take back My wool and My linen, given to cover her nakedness. 10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall deliver her from My hand. 11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her New Moons, her Sabbaths—all her appointed feasts. 12 ‘And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me.’ So I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. 13 I will punish her for the days of the Baals to which she burned incense. She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry, and went after her lovers; but Me she forgot,’ says the Lord.”

If in the confinement of captivity the people do not repent and return to the Lord then there will be even more severe punishment. What a warning this had to be for Judah who saw this judgment carried out through Assyria and from 722 BC when Israel was taken captive all the way until 586 BC when Judah fell to Babylon, Israel never returned to the land.

The first consequence we see here is that God will remove the provision of necessities. Drought and famine would come and destroy crops. The provisions He had been making would be removed. An “Act of God” indeed.

Secondly He tells the people that if they continue unrepentant in their sin and unfaithfulness then there will be no rescue. He says, “no one shall deliver her from My hand.”

Then there will be no rejoicing. He says, “I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her New Moons, her Sabbaths—all her appointed feasts.” There will be no reason, no circumstance, no situation for her to find joy. Sin will lead to misery without mirth.

He goes on, “I will destroy her vines and her fig trees.” Everything that she has gained as a result of her sin will be removed. She is facing ruin. She will be left with nothing but debt, slavery, and a need for a Redeemer.

Who is that Redeemer? Of course it is Christ. And what does He say? “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28). In John 6 we are given this assurance when facing hunger and thirst and the consequences of our own unfaithfulness, “35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”

We need a Redeemer and God has provided a Lamb!