Year 6, Day 212: Hosea 13-14

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The last two chapters of Hosea are awful bleak.  As Hosea looks to the close of God’s message through Him, he sees a people who have refused to listen.  They refuse to hear.  They refuse to look at their life.  They refuse to change.  They refuse to admit that anything might be broken.  They want to live their life the way that they see fit and they want to be left alone while doing it.

This is why Hosea calls them the “morning mist” or “dew that passes away early” and “smoke from a window.”  Each of these things are extremely temporary.  They look neat for a very short time.  But the world comes along and with a remarkably little effort it gets rid of each of those things.  That’s what Hosea thinks as he looks upon the Hebrew people of his day.

However, as bleak as these words are – and most of the rest of chapters 13 and 14 – you’ll notice that Hosea doesn’t end with judgment and condemnation.  There are large sections of judgment and condemnation in these chapters, but it isn’t how they end.  They end with a promise of God to heal wounds and forgive apostasy and love freely.  He promises to protect them in His shadow.  He promises that they will flourish and blossom.  These are words of forgiveness and restoration.  This is the message that Hosea wants to end upon.

As Hosea says, the wise will heed these words.  The wise will look upon God’s ways and embrace them.  The wise will look towards the time of healing and restoration with hope and anticipation.  God’s forgiveness is an amazing and incredible gift for which we – like the Hebrew people before us – do not deserve.

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