Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna | Wednesday, May 23, 2018 | Topic: Conscience 26
Scripture: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. Hosea 4:6
Note: Hosea was very much focused on his ministry and assignment from God towards Israel, at a time that his own marriage was going through difficult times as his wife, Gomer, seemed to have a heart that was gradually departing from her home and marriage. One of the clearest signs that any preacher man should beware of in his marriage and ministry is when the wife gradually begins to resent his ministry. Hosea’s wife, Gomer, previously his greatest fan and encourager for the difficult task God had committed into his hands, was now a different person that was showing demonstrable signs of resentment towards the same marriage.
Any man’s ministry is in great danger of getting stalled or derailed when one of the key persons literally falls off the wagon. Hosea was a young preacher who needed every encouragement he could garner, more so if he had to be speaking to stubborn folks such as Israel. Gomer was becoming a pain in the neck of Hosea after the birth of her first child. Her growing disinterest in the marriage was tearing her heart apart from her husband. She was beginning to look very much like the same people that her husband had been preaching to. There was no difference between Gomer and a resenting Israel to the word of God through the prophetic utterances of Hosea to “Return unto the Lord.”
Being saddled with a sedentary, marital lifestyle as opposed to her previous lifestyle of involvement with multiple lovers, was beginning to take its toll on Gomer. She knew where she had come from. She was beginning to miss the fast and fleeting lifestyle of street life that made her the cheap beneficiary of the many gifts of clothing and jewellery that her heart so much longed for. Gomer’s hunger and cravings for the risky, dehumanising, flirtatious and unproductive lifestyle of her past was quickly becoming more of an option to her than a lifestyle to be avoided as a married woman.
The birth of Jezreel and the subsequent destruction of Israel, culminating in their defeat to the Assyrians with its subsequent subjugation by their conquerors, marked the end of the dynasty of the Jehu era for his atrocities. Hosea’s understanding of this revelation together with the sudden changing behaviour of his wife towards the marriage, ministry and mission, was to become the bedrock of the second phase of the prophetic calling of Hosea to a stubborn nation that had already rejected the preaching overtures from the prophet Amos.
Food for thought: A love relationship that began well is not necessarily an indication of a relationship that is totally insulated from the pressures of everyday life.
Declaration: And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel. Hosea 2:22
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
