How would you feel if the Lord first began speaking to you
by saying, “Find a whore and marry her. Make this whore the mother of your
children. And here’s why: This whole country has become a whorehouse,
unfaithful to me, God.”(The Message version of Hosea 1.2) Hosea's response was to go and do exactly as
the Lord commanded. He married a woman named
Gomer which meant to bring to an end, complete or perfect. Hosea had children with Gomer and named them
incredibly unfortunate things in obedience to God. The first child is to be named Jezreel, "for
in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel."
It was in Jezreel that Jehu, as commander of the army of Israel, had wicked
queen Jezebel killed in keeping with God's command and the line from which her
husband Ahab hailed was overthrown. Now,
Jehu's own line had become wicked and would be similarly overthrown by the
Lord. The other children were to be
called not my people and no mercy. Can
you imagine bearing such names to the world?
Inner healing would definitely be required. Fortunately He is a covenant-keeping merciful
God whose anger against His people is not forever.
If you heard about a man who could heal things that doctors
couldn't heal and without medicine what would be your reaction? The people brought to Jesus, neither trained
physician nor trained rabbi, all their sick and He laid hands on them and
healed them. It is truly amazing to
think what this must have looked like, this train of sick people coming as the
sun was setting on the Sabbath and they could begin to move about freely as the
law's prohibitions were ending. They came
and He healed them, they went home well and whole. Some had been oppressed by demons and they
went home without oppression. Can you
just see this young man sitting outside the home of Peter's mother receiving
these people, praying for them and seeing them healed? They received mercy and were restored to
life. The next morning Jesus withdrew to
a desolate place to be alone and then, in keeping with what the Father told Him
in that alone time, moved on. What an
incredible twenty-four hours we have seen in the last two readings!
Paul continues on his missionary journey and along the way
stops in Troas where he teaches all night long as Lionel Richie would
sing. Around midnight a young man
listening to him falls asleep and falls out a window three stories up. Paul scoops up the boy, reassures them he is
alive, eats a bit, and then teaches through the night. It all seems so blasé, one of those things
that happens from time to time. Luke,
himself a physician, writes this account without apparent amazement, just
another little episode from the road.
Are we hungry enough to learn about the truth that we would stay up all
night, make little commotion about someone falling three stories and then just
go back to the teaching? We are those
who have received mercy, those who were not but are now His people because of
Jesus, do we appreciate that truth enough or is the thing we take for granted
and are blasé about?
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