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689. Bible Study: Hosea 13 and 14 (Overcome Sin with the help of God; Become restored) · Faith by annm2705

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  Chapter 13 of Hosea, dear God, please be with us as we read
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  through this chapter and maybe more and give us wisdom and
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  insight and let us know what you want us to take away from after
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  reading this scripture in Jesus name, Amen.
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  The Lord's anger against Israel. When Ephraim spoke, people
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  trembled. He he was exalted in Israel, but
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  he became guilty of Bale worship and died.
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  Now they sin more and more. They make idols for themselves
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  from their silver cleverly fashioned images.
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  All of them the work of Craftsman.
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  It is said of these people, they offer human sacrifices, they
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  kiss calf idols. Therefore, they will be like the
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  morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chafing
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  swirling from a like chafe, swirling from a threshing floor,
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  like smoke escaping through a window.
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  But I have been the Lord your God ever since you came out of
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  Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but
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  me, no savior except me. So when I read that, I just
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  thought no savior except me. Ultimately, that's Jesus,
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  because Jesus is a savior and Jesus is God.
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  Continuing on, I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land
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  of burning heat. When I fed them, they were
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  sacrificed. When they were satisfied, they
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  became proud. Then they forgot me.
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  So I will be like a lion to them, like a leopard.
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  I will lurk by the path like a bear robbed of her Cubs.
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  So I I thought this was kind of interesting because he
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  references a lion, a leopard and a bear.
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  And these are the same entities that are that appear in Daniel's
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  dream in Chapter 7, the lion, the leopard and the bear.
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  So again, it seems like God is certainly speaking through these
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  prophets, Hosea, and also through Daniel, and he's telling
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  of a similar thing continuing on in Scripture.
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  I will attack them and RIP them open like a lion.
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  I will devour them. A wild animal will tear them
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  apart. You are destroyed, Israel,
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  because you are against me, against your helper.
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  Where is your king that he may save you?
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  Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you said
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  give me a king and Princess? So in my anger I gave you a
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  king, and in my wrath I took him away.
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  The guilt of Ephraim is stored up, his sins are kept on record.
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  Pains of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is like a
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  child without wisdom. So this is interesting because
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  it's like he's experiencing the pain, but he doesn't understand
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  why he's experiencing the pain. Ephraim, which is, you know,
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  symbolic of the people of Israel, of the Northern Kingdom.
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  And, and there's a lack of wisdom.
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  So there's one thing to have knowledge, but applied knowledge
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  is wisdom, so it says. But he is a child without
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  wisdom. So he may have the knowledge, he
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  may know Scripture, but he doesn't apply it and doesn't see
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  it for what it really is. And I think we can all end up
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  like that at times. We may know these things, but do
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  we apply it to our lives? So pains as of a woman in
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  childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom.
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  When the time arrives, he doesn't have the sense to come
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  out of the womb. So he's experiencing pain, but
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  he doesn't, he's not like reborn.
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  Like Jesus said, in order to enter the Kingdom of God we must
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  be born again. So if he doesn't have the wisdom
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  to come out, then it's it's not going to help.
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  I will deliver this people from the power of the grave.
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  I will redeem them from death. Of course that is Jesus
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  ultimately. Where O death are your plagues?
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  Where, O grave, is your destruction?
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  I will have no compassion, even though he thrives among his
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  brothers. An E wind from the Lord will
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  come blowing in from the desert. His spring will fail and his
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  well dry up. His storehouse will be
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  plundered. All of its of all of its
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  treasures. The people of Samaria must bear
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  their guilt because they have rebelled against their God.
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  They will fall by the sword. Their little ones will be dashed
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  to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.
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  So that's pretty harsh. That's the end of chapter 13.
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  I will go ahead and read chapter 14 as well, and then we'll go
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  through the questions and answers.
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  Repentance to bring blessing. This is really important for all
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  of us. Repentance to bring blessing
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  Chapter 14 return Israel to the Lord your God.
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  Your sins have been your downfall.
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  So when we're sometimes when we are experiencing troubles, it's
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  because of our sins and we can all learn from that.
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  Other times it might be testing us where we're not doing
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  anything wrong, but there's, there's evil that's coming
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  against us and God is testing what we do about that.
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  And ultimately God wants us to turn to him when those things
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  happen in a period of testing. But it's, it's really to see
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  like, what do we do? It's our own testing and that's
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  why we need to know Scripture. That's how Jesus overcame
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  temptations that the devil was giving him right after he got
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  baptized, he went into the wilderness and was tempted by
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  the by Satan for 30 days. And Satan would offer these
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  things that were appealing to him at the time based on the
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  circumstances he was going through.
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  But he would Jesus would reply with scripture and contradict
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  what Satan would say. That's why we need to really
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  have the word of God, you know, ingrained in our thoughts so
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  that when the enemy comes to make us question things, we can
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  know from Scripture what the truth is because the enemy will
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  try to feed us lies or twist the truth.
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  But if we don't know the word of God, well, we can be deceived.
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  And so that's a lesson that all of us can learn from today.
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  OK, Return Israel to the Lord your God.
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  Your sins have been your downfall.
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  Take words with you. Isn't that interesting?
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  Take words, the words of Scripture with you and return to
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  the Lord. Say to him, forgive all our sins
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  and receive us graciously that we may offer the fruit of our
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  lips. So the fruit of our lips like
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  service, the outward evidence of having the Holy Spirit, that we
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  may serve God, and it may be used that we may, There may be
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  good things that come from us, and that we may do God's will.
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  Assyria cannot save us. We will not mount war horses.
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  We will never again say our gods plural to what our own hands
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  have made. For in you the fatherless, find
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  compassion again. This is, you know, God is our
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  Father, He is our Creator. He made us so, and he loves us.
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  I will heal their waywardness and love them freely.
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  So even though Ephraim is going against God, he is standing by
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  his promise to the ancestors Abraham, then Isaac.
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  And he says, I will heal their waywardness and love them
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  freely, for my anger has turned away from them.
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  I will be like dew, like the dew to Israel.
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  He will blossom like a Lily, like a cedar of Lebanon.
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  He will send down his roots. His young shoots will grow.
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  His splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance like a
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  cedar of Lebanon. People will dwell again in his
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  shade. They will flourish like the
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  grain. They will blossom like the vine.
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  Israeli fame will be like the wine of Lebanon.
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  Ephron. What more have I to do with
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  idols? I will answer him and care for
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  him. I am like a flourishing juniper.
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  Your fruitfulness comes from me. So again, God is our Father and
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  He is promising restoration here.
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  Who is wise? Let them realize these things.
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  Who is discerning? Let them understand the ways of
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  the Lord are right. The righteous walk in them, but
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  the rebellious stumble in them. So the sooner we accept God's
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  ways of righteousness, the better off we will be.
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  But a lot of us, you know, look at God's ways as not appealing.
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  But it does work. Over time when you read
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  Scripture, your mind does change and you do see it for what it is
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  and that, you know, instead of being confused by what the the
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  world feeds us. So I will go through the
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  questions and answers and then we'll wrap this up.
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  This might be a really short podcast.
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  Did Israel really offer human sacrifices?
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  The Israelites had adopted forms of Pagan worship and had even
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  sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire.
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  You can find that in Second Kings chapter 17 verse 17.
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  Some think the practice was not literal sacrifice, but a ritual
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  intended to give children extra vitality and strength from the
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  gods. The extraordinarily strong
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  language used to denounce these Pagan rites, however, leads most
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  to believe it referred to actual human sacrifice.
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  What were these calf idols? Huge calf idols had been erected
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  by Jeroboam, the first at Bethel or Bethavan and at Dan.
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  So you can see why Ephraim and Dan kind of get the tribe of
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  Ephraim and then also city of Dan.
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  Just that they really, there's some harsh things that are said
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  against it because they've really gone deep into the
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  idolatry. They resembled the golden calf
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  the Israelites had worshipped at Mount Sinai found in Exodus 32.
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  Why so much violence? Israel was in a covenant
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  relationship with the Lord and had been warned about the
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  consequences of unfaithfulness. In Leviticus 26 verses 14
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  through 45, in Deuteronomy 28, verses 15 through 68, the
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  Israelites could have averted the destruction by repenting,
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  but they chose not to. So, OK, so this is something
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  that we can all learn from right now, like if we are far from
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  God, if we are on against God, rebellious to God, we can be
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  certain that there are going to be consequences of that.
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  But if we repent, which doesn't mean only saying I'm sorry and
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  then continuing to live the way we were living, but repent means
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  to ask for forgiveness and then commit to changing the ways with
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  the help of God, relying on God so that we can change.
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  Because if we try to do it on our own, we're not that strong.
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  So we need the help of God to change and to become more like
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  God. We need God to become more like
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  him because we are, we are not. So anyway, going back to this,
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  this strong language was an attempt by the Lord to get
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  Israel's attention. He was taking severe action
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  because Israel had refused to respond to him.
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  Up to this point, I've pretty much experienced that in my own
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  life. I think God probably was trying
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  to reach me many times and I was ignoring it.
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  And then finally God had to do some really big things to make
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  me pay attention. And it did catch my attention,
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  and I'm thankful for it, but I didn't like going through what I
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  went through. So why didn't God give Israel a
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  king if it made him angry? Sometimes God gives us what we
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  want in order to teach us a lesson.
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  For example, Israel demanded a human king for the wrong
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  reasons. God gave them what they asked
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  for and through the failure of many wicked leaders, rulers, the
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  people were repeatedly LED into idolatry.
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  Why did God still say he would have no compassion?
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  The promise of blessing in the first part of the verse appears
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  within the larger context of judgment.
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  Death and the grave speak of the nations ultimate demise.
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  But in spite of that, Hosea offered a glimmer of God's love
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  as he spoke of God's promise to ransom and redeem His people.
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  The nation, after being judged and destroyed would be restored,
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  but for the moment God would show no compassion.
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  How could such brutality be part of God's plan?
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  A lot of people ask this question.
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  We must understand these atrocities as consequences of
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  Israel's rebellion. God's desire was to forgive and
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  restore, but the tragic consequences of unrepentant sin
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  can result in appalling calamities.
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  What is the fruit of our lips? Earlier, Hosea had denounced the
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  empty religious rituals of the people in chapter 6, verse 6 and
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  Chapter 7, verse 14. Here he elaborated further by
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  describing A genuine sacrifice as lips that sincerely offer
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  one's whole being to God. The fruit of our lips is a
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  phrase used to describe human praise and Thanksgiving in
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  worship, and that's found in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 15.
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  Have God's promises to Israel been fulfilled?
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  While some point to certain aspects of these promises that
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  have been fulfilled at various stages of Israel's history, the
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  ultimate fulfillment is yet to come at the second coming of
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  Christ. How is God like a firm,
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  flourishing juniper? This is the only place in the
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  Old Testament where the analogy of a tree used to is used to
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  describe God. The point is that of all of
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  Ephraim's fruitfulness, the point is that all of Ephraim's
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  fruitfulness came from God, not idols.
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  Is full of life and strength and year round vitality.
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  Israel. Israel's life sprang from him
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  and from him alone. How can rebellion make people
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  stumble? For those who walk in sin, the
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  right way of the Lord looks so harsh and demanding that it
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  becomes an excuse to further sin.
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  People who rebel against God tend to make the right way
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  appear too difficult to follow. But in reality, God says he will
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  give us help with that. And that's where the Holy Spirit
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  comes in. When we really want to be close
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  to God but we struggle with sin. That's where it says in your
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  weakness, I am your strength. That's basically what God says
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  through the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit gives us
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  power to overcome sin. Grace is the power of the Holy
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  Spirit. We are saved by grace, the power
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  of the Holy Spirit. That's how we are saved.
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  Jesus died on the cross and resurrected.
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  He defeated death. He made it possible for us to be
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  in God's Kingdom. But we need to repent.
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  We need to receive the Holy Spirit from God, and we need to
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  be obedient to God to do his will.
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  And that's basically what is needed for salvation.
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  So if you're not there, it's a great time to make that decision
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  and let God know what your decision is.