We are in the final chapter of the book of Hosea and the book ends with words of hope. We will be taking two days to complete this chapter.
First we are going to back up and reread the text we concluded with yesterday. This is a call to repentance. "Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him: 'Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.'" (Hosea 14:1-2) They must be sorry for sinning against the Lord. They must confess their sins to the Lord. They must ask the Lord to forgive them.
True repentance means feeling sorry for having transgressed the Lord's laws. It means admitting that He is right and that the person is wrong. A person can be an atheist and feel guilty for having done something that goes against a moral or societal principle but this is not the type of repentance the Lord is talking about here. He is talking about the type of repentance that acknowledges that He exists, that He is holy, that man is sinful, and that man needs His mercy and forgiveness. As the Apostle Paul said, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death." (2 Corinthians 7:10) Worldly sorrow is what we might refer to as a guilty conscience. Unbelievers can have guilty consciences; they can feel sorry for having gone against their own moral code or for having gone against the laws of society. A person should feel guilty for having done something wrong but that type of sorrow doesn't save a person. Acknowledging that they have transgressed the laws of a holy God is the type of sorrow "that leads to salvation", as the Apostle Paul said. That's what the Lord is calling upon the people of Israel to do in today's text.
The people must admit that no one but the God they've offended can help them. They are to say, "Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount warhorses. We will never again say 'Our gods' to what our own hands have made, for in You the fatherless find compassion." (Hosea 14:3) They must not trust in alliances with other nations, such as Assyria or Egypt (the reference to horses is believed to be a reference to Egypt, since that is where they obtained their horses). They must not trust in idols. A god that can be accurately represented by an image made by human hands is not a god worthy of worship, even assuming such a god exists. The Lord is indescribably powerful and holy in ways no human mind can fathom and in ways no human hands can reproduce.
When the people repent, the Lord will accept their repentance. He will extend mercy to them and help them to remain faithful to Him. They will not live perfect lives (no one who lives in frail mortal flesh can live a perfect life) but they will stop wandering away from Him into idolatry. "I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for My anger has turned away from them." (Hosea 14:4) We can't heal our own waywardness. In fact, the impulse to repent to the Lord in the first place is instigated by the Holy Spirit and not by our carnal flesh. And then, even after we have admitted our sins to Him, we are incapable of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and staying on the path of godliness. We cannot do it without the Lord's help. The Lord---the Great Physician---does the work of healing us of our waywardness. Hosea's people did not repent of their idolatry, which would have prevented them from being conquered by Assyria, but after their defeat and captivity we do not find the people of the kingdom of Israel (or the people of the kingdom of Judah, who were conquered by Babylon) worshiping heathen gods again. They still made mistakes after renouncing their idols, of course, because all people make mistakes. But they didn't forsake the Lord for idols again.
Because they are going to forsake idolatry in time, the Lord makes this beautiful promise to them: "I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots; his young shoots will grow. His splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon. People will dwell again in his shade; they will flourish like the grain, they will blossom like the vine---Israel's fame will be like the wine of Lebanon." (Hosea 14:5-7) The Lord promises not only blessings to Israel, but blessings to others through Israel. All the world will see how He has blessed the nation whose God is the Lord (Psalm 33:12) and many will be drawn to Him as Lord because of His kindness toward the nation of Israel.
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