ESOCS Devotional 30 January 2024 – God Speaks in Any Situation
MEMORY VERSE: “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.” Hosea 2:14 KJV
TEXT: HOSEA 2: 2-15
Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.
5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.
6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.
7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.
8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.
9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.
10 And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.
11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
12 And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.
13 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord.
14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.
15 And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
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The people of Israel had sinned against God as an adulterous woman sins against her husband. Judgement was sure to come for living in total disregard for God. However, at the end of the pronouncement of judgement, came a proclamation of God’s redemptive actions toward His people.
God would court Israel in the wilderness of captivity, far away from Canaan’s tempting idols, to restore His relationship with them for His mercy’s sake. In the wilderness, there would be no distractions, so God could communicate with them clearly. In the wilderness, they would be under the total care and preservation of God through the manna and quail.
The takeaway from the above is that God uses our negative experiences to create opportunities for us to turn back to Him. As we face problems and trials, we should remember that God speaks to us in the desert also and not just in times of prosperity. He is a loving God who knows how and when to act and get results.
- Many Christians do not listen to God during difficult times.
- Father, speak to me in my difficult times and strengthen me.
Further Reading: Ezekiel 16; Hosea 11
ESOCS Devotional 30 January 2024
