Simply teaching the Bible, simply

In this study we continue the list of complaints God is listing against Israel, and the reasons He would allow the Assyrians to come and invade and carry away captive, the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C. Chapter 9 Captivity will come because of corruption (9:1-9) Fruitful Israel will be unfruitful (9:10-17) Chapter 10 Eighth Discourse: Repent or Perish (10:1-15) –Another oracle pronouncing Israel's judgment: (10:1-8) 1. Her sins enumerated (10:1-4) 2. Assyria will destroy her kings and idols (10:5-8) –God protests that Israel had sinned from the start (10:9-11) –He pleads for them to "break up their fallow ground" and sow righteousness (10:12-15) Whilst the Historical narrative is important, there are many lessons for us today in these chapters - indeed, in the whole of Hosea! Chapter 9 opens with a warning to not bury your head in the sand of 'entertainment' and hope everything will be ok! Know God, have a real relationship with Him, and then recognise the privilege and responsibility of being called by His name! Another thing we see here is that God hates pretense! Religion and a merely outward show does not impress God. With Israel, God told them He would even remove the opportunity for them to continue their sacrifices and offerings, because their hearts were far from Him. Albert Barns comments: When man parts with the substance, his true honor, God takes away the shadow, lest he should content himself therewith, and not see his shame, and, boasting himself to be something, abide in his nothingness and poverty and shame to which he had reduced himself. The New Testament, as in the Old, states that God is not mocked! God will bring judgment on this unbelieving and unrepentant world as he did on Israel in the past. But neither will God sit idly by while His children, those who should know Him and walk with Him, embrace the 'foreign gods' of this world instead of seeking Him. It is because of His love He chastens: God “doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men” Lamentations 3:33. Grievous then must be the cause of punishment, when God not only chastens people, but, so to speak, longs to chasten them, when He chastens them without any let or hindrance from His mercy. Yet so God had said; “It shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and to bring you to nought” Deuteronomy 28:63. - AB Yet we see in these chapters that, despite Israel returning to Egypt - the epitome of sin and slavery - God Himself went to the farthest reaches (through the death of His Son whom He called out of Egypt) to bring home all who would return to His loving arms. May you be blessed and encouraged by this study.