Hosea 11-14 - Outline

[Jim Watt]

“*TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*Tel: 253-517-9195 - Email: jmbetter at gmail.com*

*Web: www.2rbetter.org*

March 2, 2013


 *SEP 13 - HOSEA 11-14 - ISRAEL SHALL BE RESTORED: GOD IS LOVE*


 *1. 11:8 (11:1-11, ESV) ISRAEL: MERCY TRIUMPHS OVER JUDGMENT. “How can I
give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make
you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within
me; my compassion grows warm and tender.” *Father, we see judgment and
mercy seeking balance in Your heart. We see Your bowels of compassion
yearning over us in our rebellion. *Hallowed be your :name.*


 *2. 11:12 (11:12-12:1) ISRAEL: CONTRASTED WITH JUDAH. “Ephraim has
surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit, but Judah
still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One.” *Thank God for Your *
remnant*, Father! We would praise You for the 7000 who would not bow to
Baal in Elijah’s day. O we would be part of Your present day remnant, and
gladden Your heart! *Your :kingdom come.*


 *3. 12:3-5 (12:2-8) ISRAEL: POWER FOR TRANSFORMATION. “In the womb he
(Jacob) took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with
God. 4 He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his
favor. He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us - 5 the LORD, the
God of hosts, the LORD is his memorial name.” *Jehovah Father, like Jacob,
our trust is in you! *Your :will be done, As in heaven, so on earth.*


 *4. 12:10 (12:9-14) ISRAEL: THOUGH UNWORTHY, YET TO BE CONVERTED! “I spoke
to the prophets; it was I who multiplied visions, and through the prophets
gave parables.” *Yes Father, You have given Your people Your true and tried
Word. All the faithfulness of Your Name backs Your Word! We trust You and
what You have spoken. *Our :daily :bread Give us this day!*


 *5. 13:4 (13:1-8) ISRAEL: SIN AND JUDGMENT. “But I am the LORD your God
from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no
savior.” *Your judgments are faithful, O Father! We submit to Your
righteousness. Take not Your hand off our lives! *And forgive us our
:debts, As we also have forgiven our :debtors.*


 *6. 13:10-11 (13:9-16) ISRAEL: JUDGMENT AND DESOLATION PRECEDES
REDEMPTION. “Where now is your king, to save you in all your cities? Where
are all your rulers - those of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? 11
I gave you a king in my anger, and I took him away in my wrath.” *Morning
follows night. Your wrath Father, lasts but a season. Joy then comes in the
morning. You are no respecter of persons - who restored Israel. You will
restore us also.

*And bring us not into temptation.*


 *7. 14:4 (14:1-9) ISRAEL: RETURN AND RESTORATION. “I will heal their
apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.” *O
what grace! O what a God we love and serve! Father, like Mary Magdalene of
old, we lavish upon You our thanksgiving, worship and praise! *But deliver
us from the evil one!*


 *NOTE**: 13:14 (13:9-16) ISRAEL: GOD’S PROMISE OF REDEMPTION. **“Shall I
ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O
death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion is
hidden from my eyes. *What more can we say than what we have said? There is
*none* like You, Father, and we worship You in Christ!


 *C.H. Spurgeon Quotes: “We Err On Both Sides” - *Brethren, we have two
faults. We do not think God to be so great as he is, and we do not think
God can be so little as he can be. We err on both sides, and neither know
his height of glory nor his depth of grace.


 *Our Psalm for the Day: 73:16-17 (73) GOD IS MY STRENGTH AND PORTION
FOREVER. “But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a
wearisome task, 17 until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned
their end.” *Father, You have made us the wisdom of God in Jesus (1 COR
1:30). We bless You for our inheritance from You in Him. By this wisdom, we
understand Your purposes in part, and the *truth* of the principle
above! *Hallowed
be your :name!*


 *Subject: *Curiously enough, this Seventy-Third Psalm corresponds in
subject with the Thirty-Seventh: it will help the memory of the young to
notice the reverse figures. The theme is that ancient stumbling-block of
good men, which Job’s friends could not get over; viz., the present
prosperity of wicked men and the sorrows of the godly. Heathen philosophers
have puzzled themselves about this, while to believers it has too often
been a temptation.


 73:1. *Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean
heart. *Whatever
may or may not be the truth about mysterious and inscrutable things, there
are certainties somewhere; experience has placed some tangible facts within
our grasp; let us, then, cling to these, and they will prevent our being
carried away by these hurricanes of infidelity which still come from the
wilderness, and like whirlwinds, smite the four corners of our house and
threaten to overthrow it. O my God, however puzzled I may be, let me never
think ill of You. If I cannot understand You, let me never cease to believe
in You. It must be so; it cannot be otherwise; You are good to those whom
You have made good; and where You have renewed the heart, You will not
leave it to its enemies.


 73:2. *My feet were almost gone. *Errors of heart and head soon affect the
conduct. There is an intimate connection between his heart and the feet.
Asaph could barely stand, his uprightness was going, his knees were bowing
like a falling wall. When men doubt the righteousness of God, their own
integrity begins to waver.


 73:3. *For I was envious at the foolish. *It is a pitiful thing that an
heir of heaven should have to confess, “I was envious,” but worse still
that he should have to put it, “I was envious at the foolish.” Yet this
acknowledgement is, we fear, due from most of us.


 73:12. *Behold these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world.* Look!
See! Consider! Here is the standing enigma! The crux of Providence! The
stumbling-block of faith! Here are the unjust rewarded and indulged, and
that not for a day or an hour, but in perpetuity. From their youth up these
men, who deserve perdition, revel in prosperity. They deserve to be hung in
chains, and chains are hung about their necks; they are worthy to be chased
from the world, and yet the world becomes all their own. Poor, purblind
sense cries, “Behold this! Wonder and be amazed, and make this square with
providential justice, if you can.” *They increase in riches*; or, strength.
Both wealth and health are their dowry. No bad debts and bankruptcies weigh
them down, but robbery and usury pile up their substance. Money runs to
money; gold pieces fly in flocks; the rich grow richer; the proud grow
prouder. Lord, how is this? Your poor servants who become yet poorer and
groan under their burdens, and made to wonder at Your mysterious ways.


 73:17. *Then I understood their end*. No envy gnaws now at his heart, but
a holy horror both of their impending doom, and of their present guilt
fills his soul. He recoils from being dealt with in the same manner as the
proud sinners, whom he just now regarded with admiration.


 73:18. *You cast them down into destruction. *Eternal punishment will be
all the more terrible in contrast with the former prosperity of those who
are ripening for it. Taken as a whole, the case of the ungodly is horrible
throughout; and their worldly joy instead of diminishing the horror,
actually renders the effect the more awful, even as the vivid lightning
amid the storm does not brighten but intensify the thick darkness which
lowers around. The ascent to the fatal gallows of Haman was an essential
ingredient in the terror of the sentence - “hang him on it.” If the wicked
had not been raised so high they could not have fallen so low.


 73:22. The original has in it no word of comparison; it ought to be rather
translated, *I was a very beast before You, *and we are told that the
Hebrew word being in the plural number, gives it a peculiar emphasis,
indicating some monstrous or astonishing beast. It is the word used by Job
which is interpreted “behemoth.” “I was a very monster before You,” not
only a beast, but one of the most brutish of all beasts, one of the most
stubborn and intractable of all beasts. I think no man can go much lower
than this in humble confession. This is a description of human nature and
of the old man in the renewed saint which is not to be excelled.


 73:27. *For, lo, they that are from You shall perish. You have destroyed
all them that go a whoring from You. *Mere heathens, who are far from God,
perish in due season; but those who, being His professed people, act
unfaithfully to their profession, shall come under active condemnation, and
be crushed beneath His wrath. We read examples of this in Israel’s history;
may we never create fresh instances in our own persons. *(From “The
Treasury of David” by C.H. Spurgeon, abridged by D.O. Fuller)*



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