Huge Hope: Major Power in the Minor Prophets預覽

Welcome to Huge Hope. Over the next twelve days we’re going to look at some passages in the collection of Old Testament books known as “minor prophets,” even though they aren’t minor at all. They may be short books, but they’re still brimming with life-giving hope.

Today we’re starting with the first of the minor prophets, Hosea. In this book, God tells the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute as a way of literalizing the way His people had turned against Him.

Hosea, being a man of God, obeyed, even to the point of having a couple of children. Such was their transgression that God told Hosea to give them names that embodied their outsider status. God was fed up!

And yet, even in the first chapter, we see that God was ready to restore them, saying in Hosea 1:10, “Yet the number of people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can neither be measured nor numbered, and in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the Living God.’”

God’s plan was always to bring restoration. All it takes is a return.

In today’s reading, the book of Hosea reaches its culmination in a restorative word of mercy and grace. We read in verses 2-3: “Take words with you and return to the Lord; say to him, ‘Take away all guilt; accept that which is good, and we will offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; we will say no more, “Our God” to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.”

No matter how far away you’ve run from God; no matter what you’ve done or what you’ve left undone, you’ve never fallen so far that you are unreachable by His grace. In Hosea, an entire nation is told to “take words” and return to the Lord. They didn’t have to make a sacrifice, they didn’t have to tear their garments or pull out their hair. They just needed to return with the right heart.

That’s it. That’s all. Healing is available. Ask for it.