Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or 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.” And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.
God’s promises gives us comfort even in when we are being disciplined. God, in Hosea, is speaking to the nation of Israel about their sin and His punishment of it. In fact, the verses just prior to the above words are about God rejecting them and being angry with them. Yet, right on the heals of that we read about the above promise. This is the same promise that God gave Abraham when He called him out of his home land. Note what the writer of Hebrews tells us about that promise to Abraham:
Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
God is about keeping His promises. God sends His word as a comfort to us. Note what Paul tells the church at Rome:
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
The “encouragement of the Scriptures” is a promise in and of itself to grab hold of each day. God wants to comfort us. His discipline is out of love (Hebrews 12:11-14). It serves a purpose in our lives. But, along with the discipline we have the promises of God that he loves us and will keep all the promises He has made to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment