Hosea 4

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” (v. 6)

I thank God that He gave the New Testament church a special promise; that he would never leave us nor forsake us (Heb. 13: 5 c), which is an indirect quote from Joshua 1: 5. Our God is “there” for us all the time. The first part of this is still true today, (of course) we are destroyed for lack of knowledge. We do not hear enough “truth” and when we do, we do no believe it easily. We need to be convinced. God’s Word is truth, from the beginning to the end; it is true all the way through, word by word in the King James Bible, so that that Book is all we need of truth. Yet, God’s people die because of a lack of knowing it. Sure, we all die anyway, but there are several promises in the Bible for longevity and God cannot lie or trick us by deceit, if only we would believe His Word, the people of God would not, and could not be destroyed. To have the Lord reject us would lead to very dire consequences, and we would be “of all men, most miserable”.

As the Lord withdrew Himself from Israel at times, He has promised never to do so with us. Heb. 13 :5, the latter part, tells us so, and we can believe it, and rest assured that it is so. What a joy to know that He will never leave us for a moment, nor forsake us altogether; we can walk in the assurance of His eternal presence.

In Israel, God withdrew Himself from them for the purpose of judgment; He removed His blessings from them. They were disOBedient to His Word, and He had to turn from them, just as they had from Him, but, thank God today for Jesus, He is the King of grace unto us. Grace allows God to remain with us, for Jesus’ sake, and continue to abide in us, in spite of our foolishness. He does not condone our sin, nor accept it in any way, but He allows us to continue in Him, and He in us. He no longer needs to judge us, that has been taken care of at Calvary, but now He is there to comfort; to guide; to bless us in a multitude of ways, for Jesus’ sake, and only for Jesus’ sake. It is not because of us, but because of Jesus that He does so; we would do well to remember that. Take comfort in the fact the our Lord will never, ever leave us, no, not for a second, but mostly, thank God that he will never abandon us altogether and leave us to perish in the pits of hell forever. I shudder to think of what life might be like if He ever decided to leave us, and turn His back on our sin and grief. Thank God mightily for the King of grace, Jesus Christ, by whom is the promise given unto us.