the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 5 of 5
Hosea 12:1-14
Ephraim is in the same frame of mind as we later find the church at Laodicea. He expresses the same self-satisfaction, "I am become rich . . ." (v. 8; Revelation 3:17). But God does not take account of outward prosperity. Morally these people are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked, just as professing Christendom is today in God’s eyes. By his lies, his deceit, his worldliness and his confidence in man, Ephraim has done everything to arouse the anger of the LORD, who will return "his reproach unto him" (v. 14: Deuteronomy 28:37). Nevertheless, to show that the way of repentance is still open, God uses the history of Jacob, who was a cunning deceiver and supplanted his brother. But the patriarch had one day come face to face with God at Peniel, wrestled with Him and triumphed, not "by his strength" but by his tears and supplications. Later on, at Bethel, having purified his household, he had learnt to know Him by His name of Almighty God (Genesis 32:24 . . .; Genesis 35:1-29). What Jacob did in crying to the Lord, humbling himself, getting rid of strange gods, is just what Ephraim has not done. It is what we must not fail to do, taking for ourselves v. 6, "Turn thou to thy God; keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually" (cf. Isaiah 31:6).
