Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna| Monday, June 11, 2018 | Topic: Conscience 42
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’s forgiving attitude to Gomer’s reluctance to change; her unheeded disrespect towards her husband and discouraging demeanour towards her marriage, had managed to keep a semblance of marriage between the prophet and a recalcitrant wife. Their marriage had been hanging on the brazen unfaithfulness of Gomer, paralleled by the gracious tolerance of Hosea. It was a scenario of two diametrically opposite characters living under the same roof, albeit with different interests.
Hosea’s situation in the marriage was that of an unhappy husband living in unrelieved agony, pain, humiliation and fear of the ultimate. Gomer’s situation was that of a shameless, unfaithful wife who couldn’t be bothered about her husband and marriage. She had been frolicking with her numerous lovers in unbridled, conventional manner, uncharacteristic of what’s expected of a married woman in Israel. Her activities had been a source of constant agony and prayer for Hosea.
Hosea’s greatest fear was confirmed when it wasn’t long before Gomer became pregnant with a child. Hosea was certain that this child who turned out to be a girl, wasn’t his child. At God’s direction, Hosea was instructed to name the new baby Loruhamah, which means “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away” (Hosea 1:6). What was taking place in the domestic life of Hosea’s marriage had a larger dimension of the nation of Israel. As a nation, they had taken the mercy and longsuffering of God for granted in rejecting His merciful overtures to repent from the worship of several gods who were now her lovers. Her price for rejecting God’s love and patience was to be carried into captivity by the Assyrians.
Much as God was gracious and merciful to Israel for such a long period of time, giving her the opportunity to change, this provision could not be taken for granted as depicting God’s weakness. Gomer needed a strong reaction from Hosea after getting pregnant in harlotry by her numerous lovers. God loves man but there’s nothing He can do about man’s rejection of His offer of salvation through the death of His begotten Son on the cross of Calvary. The finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross is the only provision for man to be able to reconcile with God.
Food for thought: God’s patience, grace and mercy towards man should not be misconstrued for His weakness.
Declaration: The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Numbers 14:18
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
