HOSEA 14 (NOTES OF A READING)
HOSEA 14 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC It is very touching to see what Jehovah says of Israel in chapter 13: 4, 5: “Yet I am Jehovah thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou hast known no God but me; and there is no saviour besides me. I knew thee in the wilderness, in the land of drought”. It showed there was no change in the relations of Jehovah. There was the most terrible departure and unfaithfulness on the side of the people, but on His side He was still Jehovah their God, and there was no other. So it was still possible for them to return to Him, and if they did so, they would find He was just what He ever had been. And in principle we all rejoice to know that is as true for us as for them. All that was made known of God at the beginning of our dispensation still remains true, and however far His [p. 406] people have departed from it, it is there to return to, if any one of them is minded to do so. It is a very great comfort, is it not?
Rem We have the revelation of the Father by the Son at the beginning.
CAC At the beginning the Father was revealed in the Son, and the Holy Spirit was given to those who believed.
Redemption was wrought in divine love through the death and blood-shedding of Christ, so that through what He accomplished saints should have a wholly new place before God in Christ. And all that was true then is true now. Christendom has departed from it, but it is there to be returned to by any with the mind to do so. It says, “O Israel, return unto Jehovah”. Well, that is just as true for us as them. We have moved away, I mean as part of the christian profession, but God has not. If we return to God, we must return to what is in His heart and mind, from which He has never departed.
Rem He put the very words in their mouth. He says, “Take with you words”. He tells them what to do and how to do it.
CAC It is because the blessed God is so anxious that we should return to the full blessedness of what He is Himself as revealed in love. We have only to read Romans 5 and 8 to see what saints enjoyed at the beginning, and if we return we shall enjoy it too, not to speak of resurrection with Christ and being seated in the heavenlies in Him — all things that were true at the beginning of the dispensation. The iniquity of the dispensation is that these things have been departed from.
Ques What is the meaning of, “Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes”, in chapter 13: 14?
CAC Just what we have been saying; God intimates that He would ransom and redeem them. It is what He would do, it is all on His side. It is just as true for us. God here delivers with the full power of death in view. So that if we return to God, we return to all these things.
[p. 407] Ques The power of Sheol is the limit, would you say?
CAC And that is actually the state of man. It is not merely the state of being wicked sinners, but we are in death — that is the truth. Jesus said to Martha, “Did I not say to thee, that if thou shouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” (John 11: 40), and the glory of God is to overthrow all the power of death. So the position that results is a wholly new one. We are not now patched upon the old, but it is a wholly new condition in Christ. And I suppose we never really return to God till we see that.
But He takes pains to put words into our mouths. If there is any desire to return to God, He makes it very simple for us. “Take with you words, and turn to Jehovah; say unto him, Forgive all iniquity, and receive us graciously” — that is the whole matter.
Rem It seems to me we come to it that we really prove God to be what we believe Him to be.
CAC Yes. And He makes Himself known in His infinite grace, so that we become offerers. “So will we render the calves of our lips”, it says; so that Hosea has clearly the thought of spiritual sacrifices. It is not a literal calf here, showing that the Old Testament gives the thought of spiritual sacrifices — sacrifices that can be brought by what we say.
God has made it possible for us to bring sacrifices. As being forgiven and in liberty, we are free to bring sacrifices, as it is said, “The sacrifice of praise continually to God, that is, the fruit of the lips confessing his name” (Hebrews 13: 15). The lips are important as giving expression to what is in the heart.
Rem He goes back to the land of Egypt in chapter 13: 42.
CAC Yes, I think we have to go back to God as revealed in Christ. There is no true recovery until we come to that. It is not just that I have been bad; recovery is that we are brought to the blessedness of God. He says, ‘Return unto Me’. It is not that I have got right exactly, but God has received His right place in my heart and soul. The younger son in Luke 15 said, “I perish with hunger”, but that was not the main thing, was it?, but that there springs up in his heart a sense of the blessedness to be found in the father’s heart. Bereft of human counsel, he finds God gracious to him. It is like the father falling on the prodigal’s neck and covering him with kisses. It is marvellous to think of. Well, it is the way God receives all that turn to Him. Then it is that evil things are turned away from. The mind of the man and his heart get strength, and the idolatry is renounced, the soul has finished with all that.
Rem What has displaced God will be displaced. And it will be so in the universe by and by; God will be all in all, supreme.
Rem God is more delighted with recovery than anything else. The very fall was allowed to take place that there might be recovery.
CAC Yes, so that the knowledge of His glory might be brought in in such a tender and touching way. We know God by the very extremity of the need we are in. No angel of God can know God as we do. The elder son was outwardly near, but morally very far off.
Rem Self-righteousness hinders us more than we think.
CAC Yes, it is the great snare of the human heart. God loves to remove every trace of the former state. “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely”. There was no trace of the younger son’s defection and departure when he came back into the father’s house. “I will love them freely”, there is no restraint on the love of God, He is set at liberty to love them freely. Well, if He loves the saints as He loves Christ, that is freely indeed. We do not take it in, but there it is. The world is yet to know “that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me” (John 17: 23). Well, that is the character of the love into which we are brought. And is it not the sense of these things that becomes the spring of everything that is good in the saints? So He says, “I will be as the dew unto Israel”.
Ques. What [p. 409] is the dew?
CAC It is a refreshing influence from above that causes things to spring up in life, is it not?
Rem In Psalm 133 it speaks of the dew descending and of “life for evermore”. There are wonderful suggestions here of what there is for God — the lily and the smell of Lebanon.
CAC And that is brought about in the saints as coming under the influence of God, and all that God is and Christ is. So it says, “He shall blossom as the lily”. It strikes me, if we read this prophet and see all he says of the state of this people, we could hardly have a greater contrast than this blossoming as a lily. I suppose the Jew is a byword for selfishness and greed. Well, he is going to blossom as the lily and be in the beauty of Christ. So the apostle Paul was before “a blasphemer and persecutor, and an insolent overbearing man”, and he comes out in the meekness and gentleness of Christ. It is wonderful what the grace of God can effect, and we see it sometimes; cross-grained people become as meek and gentle as lambs.
Ques Why does it say, “Cast forth his roots as Lebanon”?
CAC It is what grows up here in moral beauty under the eye of God, and I suppose that really requires the roots being cast forth as Lebanon. That is, it suggests a firm grounding in all these precious things we have been speaking of, that the roots of the soul have laid hold of these things; so that the stability of the soul is likened to Lebanon. Lebanon is brought in three times in these verses. It suggests what is excellent, does it not? Moses asks to go over and see that goodly mountain and Lebanon, as if he looked upon Lebanon as the crowning feature of the land.
Rem “Wine” rejoices the heart of God.
CAC All these things are a test of wisdom. He challenges us in the last verse. All these figures are not used at random, they all have their significance. Then “his beauty shall be as the olive tree”. That shows that saints are linked on with all the promises of God; the olive tree is connected with divine promise; Abraham is the olive tree of promise. So [p. 410] that everything spiritual is developed in the soul as we draw from the olive tree of promise. The olive tree speaks of that, it is what yields the oil.
Ques “They shall revive as corn”, what does that mean?
CAC I think it means the saints become sources of strength and stimulation, they actually become that.
Rem Scripture speaks of wine that makes glad man’s heart.
CAC And the saints moving in the blessedness of all this become sources of great strength and stimulation; that is why we love the company of the saints, because we find strength in it and stimulation.
Ques It says, “Sit under his shadow”. To what does that refer?
CAC That is very important, for we are in a place where we need to be shaded from the influences that are about. We all know that the corrupt influences of the scene we are passing through tend to influence and exhaust us, and make us spiritually dry, and we need shade, and we find it under His shadow.
Rem “A man shall be ... as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land” (Isaiah 32: 2).
CAC The thought of shadow is very marked in Scripture, and it applies to a time when influences are against us; we need to be shaded from them. It is in the light of all this that Ephraim commits himself definitely and says, “What have I to do any more with idols?” He comes into the light of all this, and renounces the idols. There is a time in the history of the soul when we do so. God notices it. It is God who says, “I answer him, and I will observe him”. It is like a little conversation; that is, if there is any movement to renounce what is idolatrous, He notices it. When we please God we know it. It is no vain boast when he says, “I am like a green fir-tree”. He is conscious of his freshness as recovered to God. “From me is thy fruit found”; that is, all that is pleasing to God in the saints has its source in God. So that all vainglory has no place, and there is something better in its place. The whole [p. 411] book of Hosea has to do with a people on earth, so if we do not come out in the verification of these things now, we shall never have the chance.
In the previous chapters everything is seen as departed, it is the exposure of their state. Now there is a return. And we are to observe these things, and as observing them and as being wise, we shall understand the ways of divine love with His people.