August 11, 2025 - Hosea 10-12

The prophecies of Hosea are easily divided into two groups:  chapters 1-3 biographical materials & chapters 4-14 oracles.  Back in 4:1, Hosea had begun his oracles with these words:  “Hear the word of the Lord . . .” (4:1).  We live in a day in which the Word of God is despised and anyone who stands on it is ridiculed and mocked.  It is said that the Bible is just another religious book like all the others; nothing special about it.  They all contain truth.  In their complete separation from God, some will question, “Why doesn’t God speak to me?”  And, of course, the emphasis is largely on the “me.”  “I need God to speak directly to ME!  He owes me that!”  Of course, God owes us nothing.  Job learned that lesson and was better off for it, ultimately saying to God:  “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?  Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:2-3).  As it was in Job’s day, and as it was in Hosea’s day, so it is today.  So many believe the lies of the evil one, going their own way and doing their own thing with all the consequences.  It was the same in Hosea’s day:  “You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies.  Because you have trusted in your own way” (10:13).  And so, we say, God has already spoken.  He has given us the Bible, and we but need to listen to his voice as he speaks out from there.  Jesus spoke:  “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63).

Christ, the blessed one, gives to all

wonderful words of life;

sinner, list to the loving call,

wonderful words of life;

all so freely given,

wooing us to heaven.

Beautiful words, wonderful words,

wonderful words of life.

Beautiful words, wonderful words,

wonderful words of life.   -- P. P. Bliss (1874)