Overboard For The Lord

[dave c]

simpletruth #138ar Revisited 22SEP10 salicart@msn.com

HOSEA 10:12—Part Forty Four: Overboard For The Lord

by rev. dave c

Hosea 10:12, Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the LORD, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you (NKJV).

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1Jn 4:10; NIV). We love, because He first loved us (1Jn 4:19; NAS). In Genesis 3:9 (“Adam, where are you?”) we see demonstrated the truth of God first loving us so that we are provided the opportunity and the ability to love Him in return as the Lord sought/called out to all of Mankind through the person of the fallen Adam. Not until the third generation through Seth, however, are we told that “men began to call upon the name of the Lord” (Ge 4:26) as opposed to those who trusted in their own prideful endeavors (Ge 4:16-24). From very near the beginning, then, we see two strains of humanity—those who call upon the name of God—who seek Him—and those who do not.

In Isaiah 65 we read: 1"I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.' 2 All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations… (NIV). While there is some disagreement among commentators as to whom Isaiah 65:1&2 are referring, Paul, himself, exegetes the verses in Romans 10:19 But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? First Moses says, "I WILL MAKE YOU JEALOUS BY THAT WHICH IS NOT A NATION, BY A NATION WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING WILL I ANGER YOU." 20 And Isaiah is very bold and says, "I WAS FOUND BY THOSE WHO DID NOT SEEK ME, I BECAME MANIFEST TO THOSE WHO DID NOT ASK FOR ME." 21 But as for Israel He says, "ALL THE DAY LONG I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HANDS TO A DISOBEDIENT AND OBSTINATE PEOPLE" (NAS).

The Apostle to the Gentiles begins by quoting Deuteronomy 32:21 in Romans 10:19, and then he refers to the Isaiah 65:1&2 passages. Paul interjects his interpretation of 65:2 by telling us that it was to Israel (God’s chosen people, the people who were called by His name) that the Lord had stretched out His hands all day long, but to no avail. By inference, then, Isaiah 65:1 refers to the Gentiles as the people to whom God had revealed Himself and allowed Himself to be found—even though they had not asked or sought for Him. This is very significant. God “foreknew, predestined, called, and elected” Abraham and his descendents to be His chosen people (Ge 12:1-3). Beginning with Abraham, however, and continuing throughout the Old Testament, Scripture does not say that the Old Testament Jews were saved as their national birthright, nor that only Israel could be saved (Ge 12:3; 22:17&18; 26:3-5). Quite the contrary. The Israelites were to live and serve as an example of God’s light to all the world that surrounded them. Then, as now, salvation was available to any and all individuals through obedient faith born of love for God and for other people.

Consider the life of Jonah. Jonah was a Hebrew—a member of God’s elect. Jonah was also personally called to be an evangelical prophet, not to the Jews, but to the Gentile city of Nineveh as a missionary within the hated Assyrian Empire. From early childhood we are told the story of how Jonah fled from God’s command by heading west across the sea. We know that God sent a terrible storm, the reluctant prophet convinced the sailors to throw him overboard, and that Jonah was then swallowed by a great fish. The sky cleared and the sea became immediately calm, Then the men feared the LORD greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows (Jo 1:16; NAS). The pagan crew of that ship was not “seeking the Lord”, but the One True God revealed Himself to them, anyway—through both the witness of God’s prophet and through miraculous phenomena in nature.

Jonah spent three days being taxied back to Asia Minor in the belly of the fish, he repented, and after being spat out on to dry land—he accepted his second calling from God. Even then, Jonah resented God’s desire to spare the population of a major Gentile city: But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD and said, "Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity (Jo 4:1&2; NAS). Jonah was quite possibly the first, and only, prophet of the Lord who became exceedingly angry with God because the exhortation to repent resulted in a Spiritual revival that saved thousands and thousands of lives. After God used a plant as a final lesson for the recalcitrant Hebrew, ...the LORD said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. "Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?" (Jo 4:10&11; NAS).

In the story of Jonah we see two prime demonstrations of God “revealing Himself to those who did not ask for Him; being found by those who did not seek Him. To a nation that did not call on His name, He said, 'Here am I, here am I.'“—"I WAS FOUND BY THOSE WHO DID NOT SEEK ME, I BECAME MANIFEST TO THOSE WHO DID NOT ASK FOR ME." The people of Nineveh were not members of God’s elect, and yet He reached out to them through the presence and voice of one conceived and called to that purpose. Then, as now, The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2Pe 3:9; NIV). Amen.