Hosea is all about the unfaithfulness of God’s people in contrast to His faithfulness. We turn our backs. We violate his commandments. We worship other gods. But He always calls us back to Himself. He always wants us back. We break our marriage contract with Him, but he will never break His covenant with us. He is not like us! He is perpetually faithful.
In a closing passage from Hosea, God expresses the depth of His love and enduring faithfulness for His people. In Hosea 13:14, God asks, “Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting?” The assumed answer to the first two questions is “yes” I will. The assumed answer for the last two questions is “nowhere.” The plagues of death and the sting of death have been defeated for God’s people. God will never go back on His word.
The following was found on the body of Colonel David Marcus, who helped establish the state of Israel. He wrote: I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails in the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she is only a ribbon of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone!” Gone where? Gone from my sight—that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone!” there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “There! She comes!” And that is dying.
Chuck
“Death is swallowed up in victory…O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? …But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:54-57