What is God's answer to the adultery of Israel? “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and
bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her." What a God!
Mercy and love are His response to an adulterous wife. Would that be your response if your spouse
cheated on you? I will woo him/her to
myself and speak tenderly that I might ultimately bless them? He says that after this Israel will call Him
"husband" instead of "baal" which means master or
lord. In that day of restoration God
promises to make a covenant between Israel and the rest of life, creeping
things, birds, and beasts of the field.
They will know peace, no bow or sword.
The characteristics of the covenant relationship, betrothal, are to be
righteousness, justice, steadfast love, mercy and faithfulness. Anyone want a marriage like that? Restoration means reversal. Those who are not my children will become my
children, those who had not received mercy will receive mercy. What is required? Repentance.
Rejection of all the false gods and competitors for His affection in our
lives. Do you want that marriage
covenant partner badly enough to give up all that?
Our work produced absolutely nothing but because you, the
rabbi, say so, we'll let down our nets into the deep water. Peter's expectations for this act are
nil. He has been greatly impressed by
Jesus' teaching and surely was delighted to be chosen as the host for His
teaching but after working all night and having just finished cleaning and
mending the nets for fishing this night, letting down the nets in a futile act
and having to haul them and clean them again was the last thing he wanted to
do. He did so as an act of obedience,
not an act of faith. The result was
absolutely amazing, a catch large enough to require his friends to come and
help bring it in. His reaction to this
was the same as Isaiah's that day in the temple in Isaiah 6, "Go away from
me Lord, I am a sinful man."
Something in this revealed Jesus to him as other than a sinful man in
whose presence Peter was not prepared to remain. How truly amazing that he was then invited to
follow Jesus. He left behind his record
catch just as the woman at the well in John 4 left behind her water jar. Nothing else mattered now.
Paul's words to the church at Ephesus as he prepares to
depart from them for what he realizes will be the last time are echoes of
Moses' speech in Deuteronomy and Joshua's words to the nation prior to his own
death. They also refer to the charge
given Ezekiel, that his job was to speak
the truth, point out sin, and if he did these things his hands were
clean, he bore no guilt whereas if he failed to do this, he would share the
guilt of the sins of the people. Paul
has no doubt that fierce wolves will come soon to destroy the work he has done
in preaching the Gospel. They have come
everywhere he has ever been. His charge
is that they stand in the truth he has preached. He is willing to lose his life, it is
meaningful only because of Jesus. Paul
was willing to repent and walk away from all he had gained in order to have
Jesus. He was the most fully converted
man who ever lived.
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