God's ways are not our ways

February 8, 2016

 Hosea 1:6-7

“She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”

It is unwise to make an absolute statement about what one would do, or not do if put into that situation!  I’ve thought often about the LORD’s requirements of men like Isaiah whom God told to go naked for three years, yes, and out in public.  You may not believe God required this of whom many call the greatest of the prophets, and you can read the account in Isaiah 20:2-4.

What about God calling Gideon into His service to battle the Midianites and the Amalekites that had encamped in the Valley of Jezreel?  Now we are told in Judges 6:34-35, that the Spirit of the LORD clothed Gideon and he sounded the trumpet and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him, and then he sent messengers throughout Manasseh and he ended up with 32,000 men.  Now if you had trouble with Isaiah going naked for three years, you are going to have a problem with what God is going to tell Gideon.  Chapter 7:2, “The LORD said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, “My own hand has saved me.”  This was God’s plan, let anyone who is fearful go home, and 22,000 returned home and now the army is at 10,000, not the best plan for waging war.  And God told Gideon, still too many and you can read all about it in Judges 7, but the end results were 300 men took the victory and the people of the East lost 120,000 men in the battles.

So as the husband of my friend and wife of noble character and the dad of a daughter, it is hard for me to grasp the magnitude of what God has required of Hosea.  He first is told to marry a woman who he knows is going to sleep around and now he is being told to call his daughter by the name “No Mercy” for by doing so it was a statement of God’s relationship with Israel.  “And the Lord said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all.”  Israel was unfaithful to the LORD, and by doing so they forfeited God’s love for them.

My hope is that you and I don’t allow God’s ways or requirements of these men to block our understanding of the big picture, God’s chosen people were chasing after the little gods of this world, and turning their backs on the Father.  So once more it’s mirror time, what is your affection centered on, the only God, or the little gods of this present darkness?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice