Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna | Wednesday, May 2, 2018 | Topic: Conscience 8
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 the last doomsday prophet sent to the breakaway northern kingdom which became known as Israel. The other faction which was the southern kingdom, became known as the land of Judah. Hosea became the man who was popularly referred to as the “death bed” prophet of Israel. His prophecy was ignored by the people as mere fables coming from his own imagination and failed marriage. It was no wonder therefore, when the persistent calls by Hosea were rejected; the fallout from which resulted in the conquest if Israel by Assyria.
Prior to their conquest and subsequent subjugation by the Assyrians, Israel as a nation had experienced a golden age period of phenomenal prosperity and peace, never seen before since the days of king Solomon, who ruled over a united kingdom, bequeathed to him by king David. Wealth and power deluded Israel into a false sense of security, when the prophet instead, became a laughing stock. The people mocked Hosea for having lost his senses in marrying a woman who was into whoredom.
The peculiar situation of the prophet Hosea was a direct instruction from God to use his life and troubled marriage with an unfaithful wife to mirror the nation of Israel and their marriage relationship with God. The intimacy between God and Israel was akin to a marriage relationship between a man and an unfaithful wife. God had intended for Israel to appreciate the seriousness of her unfaithfulness in marriage when Gomer, the wife of Hosea would often run to her lovers for comfort. Israel’s lovers were the idols that she often ran to for comfort and relief, instead of her rightful husband, who is Yahweh.
Hosea in Hebrew means salvation. He was a type of Christ who was used as a sacrificial lamb by God to rescue a nation which was on the path to death. Israel had been blinded to her sins when she became seduced by the temporary prosperity and pleasure she derived from calling on her lovers; the idols. What Israel failed to realise was that her true source and sustenance was Yahweh. No ordinary man would have been able to survive the mental torture and humiliation that Hosea had to endure, purely for the sake of the people of Israel. Inspite of the suffering and sacrifice, they still rejected him. Similar parallel abounds in the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of mankind. He went through suffering, sacrifice and rejection at the hands of His own people for our sake. In the case of Christ, the rules of natural justice were sacrificed because the depravity of the people had reached a height where their consciences could be considered as dead.
Food for thought: When people reach the limit where they can freely sin beyond the boundaries of human dignity, you can be sure that their conscience has deserted them.
Declaration: When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” Hosea 1:2
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
