HOSEA 14:2-10
by John Charlton
Sometimes a passage from Sacred Scripture speaks to the issues of the day, more eloquently than can be imagined; while reading the Bible today, I came upon this passage from the prophet Hosea (Osee), which fortells the future healing of the nation in the Faith of Christ and in the Christian Eucharist.
I will omit commentary, because there is nothing I can say which would equal the eloquence of this Jewish Prophet.
As the prophet spoke to the people of ancient Israel, urging them to wake up and realize their dire situation, the fruit of their own making in abandoning the Lord God, he urged them at the close of his inspired Book, to turn back to God, in these words:
Turn back, O Israel, to the Lord, Thy God!
Since thou art fallen into thy iniquity.
Take with thee my words, and be converted to the Lord; and say to Him:
“Take away our iniquity, accept our offerings,
And we shall render unto Thee the praise of our lips.
Assur shall not save us:
We shall not ascend upon our pride,
Nor shall we say further, “The works of our hands, our gods!” “
Because of Him, who is within thee, Thou shalt have mercy upon our people:
“I shall heal their sorrows;
I shall love them freely:
because My wrath has turned away from them.
I shall be like the dew;
Israel shall sprout like the lilly,
And its root shall break forth like a ceder of Lebanon;
His branches shall go forth,
and he shall be as the olive tree in her glory,
And his fragrance like that of Lebanon.”
Those who have sat in the shadows have turned back;
They live upon wheat, and they shall sprout as the vine;
His Memorial shall be as the wine of Lebanon;
“Ephraim, what are thou to Me than an idol?
I shall hear thee out, and I shall direct him unto green pasture;
From Me has thou found thy enjoyment.”
Who is wise, and shall understand these words? And understanding them, who shall comprehend them?
Because they belong to the upright way of the Lord,
and the just shall walk in them;
Liars, however, shall fall down to destruction upon them.
——————–
Text taken translated from http://vulsearch.sourceforge.net/html/Os.html
Normal text is that of the prophet; Red text are the words of the Lord; italicized text t is what the people should say to God.
The Holy Bible addresses our present predicament directly. The Torah, in the last of the 5 Books of Moses, in Deuteronomy chapter 17:15 explicitly spells out G’d’s command to us:
“…Be sure to set as king over yourself one of your own people; you must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your kinsman”
Hitler and Stalin were but two examples of what happens when you transgress this rule. Obama is a threat to the whole world.
Yes,the problem is that there must be humility and repentance before deliverance.That is the opposite of the direction taken by the people of this nation for at least 48 years. — “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2Chronicles 7:14
Banning God from the public domain is not an act of faith.Millions of abortions is an abomination before the Lord. Electing reprobates to represent us in DC is not the works of Christians.Judgment is upon this land.That is hard to accept.It is not a message anoyone wants to hear.It’s much easier to read passages of deliverance and those verses that are uplifting to us.It is hard to swallow the exhortations and rebukes and sound a clarion call of repentance to our fellow man.But it must be done.
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD” Amos 8:11
We are in those days,where we have a social gospel preached,but the Word is not heeded outside underground churches these days.