A Battle Roils Inside GOD's Heart

The Minor Prophets Speak to Today 

The Fight Inside GOD's Heart 

Hosea 11:6-9 NLT

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No, I will not unleash my fierce anger.

    I will not completely destroy Israel,
for I am God and not a mere mortal.
    I am the Holy One living among you,
    and I will not come to destroy.

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God is not a human. Merely mortal as he puts it (that should humble us!). He does not judge like we would judge. He does not see judgment as we see judgment - something they deserve - though he does see judgment as justice. God's judgment is a requirement of his justice.

God sees judgement as a reason to grieve even when done in anger. God does not get his jollies off knocking people and nations around. He has been grieving ever since the fall. The results of the fall, the requirements it unleashed within himself, provide no pleasure for him.

God is not a monolithic judge.

God is conflicted over the judgment he is about to bring on those he loves. "For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child." Hebrews 12:5-7/Proverbs 3:11-12. And furthermore, "If God doesn’t discipline you ..., it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all." Hebrews 12:8. 


Love drips with compassion for the hurting beloved. Stern but loving. That is the parent who raises the successful child - in God's case, the godly child. But the moments of sternness, if based on love, call out our compassion. Love knows no other way. How could it? It is the way, the model, of our Father in heaven.

How can I give you up!

How can I let you go!

How can I destroy you like

Admah and Zeboiim!

The judgment God reveals in Hosea is nothing more than the curse Moses prophesied in his final message to the people of Israel. Nothing more that what God had pronounced and fulfilled over and over again in Israel's history. Nothing more than the same pronouncement God has made regarding us today.

The Israelites well knew what Admah and Zeboiim stood for.

"‘The whole land is devastated by sulfur and salt. It is a wasteland with nothing planted and nothing growing, not even a blade of grass. It is like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger.’" Deuteronomy 29:23.

When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah he wiped out the whole valley they inhabited. He destroyed it with fire and with salt and sulfur. He made it uninhabitable and, if we place that plain where legend says, he flooded it with water and caused the water to become some of the saltiest in the world. Admah and Zeboiin were two other pleasant cities on the plain.

“Those who hear the warnings of this curse should not congratulate themselves, thinking, ‘I am safe, even though I am following the desires of my own stubborn heart.’ This would lead to utter ruin! The Lord will never pardon such people. Instead his anger and jealousy will burn against them." Deuteronomy 29:19-20a.

Yes, God is conflicted within himself. A battle roils inside his heart. He finds no pleasure in the judgment we are bringing upon the Western churches and the lands called Christian. His love is too deep for that. His love is too strong. As strong as justice itself.

So let us not congratulate ourselves as Children of Grace. 

Stop thinking, as some say aloud,

"I am safe, even though I am following 

the desires of my own stubborn heart." 

That is actually what is leading us toward utter ruin! 

God may be conflicted, but God,

according to scripture, Old and New,

will never pardon such people. 

Unless we repent, his anger and jealousy will

continue to burn against us.

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Eagle Creek Flowers #1 - modified by Wayne Anson, all rights reserved

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