I will not have mercy on her children, For they are the children of harlotry. For their mother has played the harlot; she who conceived them has behaved shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my linen, My oil and my drink.’ (vs4-5)
She mistakenly thought that sin, self, and circumstances made her satisfied and happy - that she'd received good from some source other than the Lord - so He brings her to nothingness and barrenness, so that she can be saved (vs2-5). We read, “For she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink”. She walked in proud rebellion, but trouble and helplessness would make her trust Christ. It's the same with us. Sin deceives us, self-strength lies to us, and we credit our zeal, success, and salvation to ourselves, giving our love to everything but Christ, who alone is why we aren't going to hell!
What hinders you? Where do you look for comfort? What is your praise? Many say, “I need a wife”, or “a better husband”, but they blindly miss out on God who alone gives peace. Job 35:10 says, “But no one says, Where is God ,my Maker, who gives songs in the night, who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of heaven?”
Secondly, He brings us down, because we won't listen (vs6-13). We read, “Therefore I will return and take away My grain in its time and My new wine in its season, and will take back My wool and My linen, given to cover her nakedness.” We glory in our strength, so we learn our weakness. We boast in our zeal, so He takes it away, giving us the miserable fruit of self-promotion and defeat. We boast in ease, boast in feelings, and glory in success, so He gives us trouble, sorrow, and failure. We boast in our ability, but He removes it, because of His love! He did not redeem us to serve ourselves, or for us to give our love to another, so He saves us by the furnace of affliction. Isaiah 48 says, tells us, “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it; for how should My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another” (Is 48:9-11).
Finally, He returns to His afflicted and saves the poor in spirit (vs14-15). He says, “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor (Trouble) as a door of hope (because He saves afflicted sinners); She shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt”. We failed and faltered because we had to learn that salvation's of the Lord, and it's to His glory in obedience and praise. Now, being low, we trust Him, and as believers, we get the fruit of faith. I'm aware, by the pain of sin, that obedience – faith, and doing what God says all day and night - is the best thing for me, the only way to be happy, and THE calling of my life (Eph 4:1-3). He saves us as sinners, so that His glory and obedience to Him is the most important thing in our life.
Be encouraged if He is your Savior and Lord. Rejoice, if you're desperate enough to believe!
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