God’s Mercy Restores! Hosea 8-14

Hosea 14:1-3 (ESV)

A Plea to Return to the LORD

Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God,

for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

Take with you words

and return to the LORD;

say to him,

“Take away all iniquity;

accept what is good,

and we will pay with bulls

the vows of our lips.

Assyria shall not save us;

we will not ride on horses;

and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’

to the work of our hands.

In you the orphan finds mercy.”

The entire book of Hosea is God’s metaphor for His love for Israel and His call for them to repent and return to Him.   He wants them to quit calling the work of their hands, “My God!”  The above final plea is how God defines repentance.  They were turning to the works of their hands to worship and they were seeking the armies of other nations to bring them rest, peace and assurance.  Their repentance has to confess this and then they will see God’s glory.   The last line in the above verses is so powerful:

“In you the orphan finds mercy.” 

The word picture is clear.  An orphan in any era of society has a rough life.  They are abandoned for one reasons or another.  It makes them psychologically in tumult and peril.   This type of trauma never leaves their psyche.    It can damage a person for life.  But, they are redeemed and healed by God’s mercy.   God grants them mercy and revives them through that mercy.   It is God’s mercy that will overlook their rebellious ways.   In light of our lives we need God’s mercy to cover our sins with Christ’s sacrifice.  In His mercy He gives us, freely, forgiveness, despite our long history of rebellion and turning to them world and the works of our hands for salvation.   God cries out, “Return,” to us all.   When we do, we see His glory:

2 Corinthians 3:14-18 (ESV)

But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.