God's Plan
Let us delve into Chapter 2 of the Book of Hosea, the theme of which is God will betroth us to Himself forever! We must understand what God's plan is. The ancient Chinese ancestors spoke of the unity of man and heaven, referring to the relationship between man and God, meaning that we will eventually enter into a perfect unity with God. However, on this matter, many churches place more emphasis on interpersonal relationships and marital relationships in this world, which has resulted in a misunderstanding of the relationship between the church and God. In fact, the Apostle Paul spoke at length in Ephesians about how husbands and wives should relate to each other, but later said: I am not referring to you as a couple! Not husband and wife for life, but Christ and the church.
This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:32)
We must know God's plan! God's plan is not overly concerned with the matters between you and your wife, or you and your husband, because most quarrels between couples arise from infidelity. If marital relationships have the problem of infidelity, does that mean non-marital relationships are free from it? The word adultery refers to spiritual adultery.
The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” (Genesis 2:23)
Did God originally create Adam and Eve hoping for a loving marriage? Actually, no! Adam and Eve ruined the marital relationship, and the two of them became adversaries. I have seen some elderly couples who, after a lifetime together, find that their adversarial relationship is nearing its end when one of them passes away first, and rarely does the other cry their eyes out, but rather feels it is a good riddance. Why? Because couples eventually turn into adversaries.
God's plan is not about bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; it is about bone of my bones, a thorn, and flesh of my flesh, a thorn. God's plan is for man to be united with Jesus Christ! How can man be one with God? It is through God's church; this is God's great plan. God did not speak so plainly about this in the days of Hosea, but if you could have understood the Book of Hosea back then, you would have been remarkable! After so many years, after Jesus Christ's death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, He began to have His own church, and you would understand that Hosea was talking about the relationship between the church and God.
Hosea is not talking about the Israelites at all; he is talking about God's great plan! If you do not know God's plan and continue to go your own way, then you are outside of God's plan. If you want to be outside or inside God's plan, you must understand God's plan, deeply understand how the Israelites offended God, because the sins suffered by the Israelites are not the sins suffered by man! You must know what God's plan is, begin to know God, know God's deeds, and do not observe God's deeds for years without knowing God or knowing God's deeds, then you are in trouble!
A Christian who loves the world is in a worse state than someone who is not a Christian! When I see some brothers and sisters who love the world, I advise them: Do not believe in the Lord! They do not understand and say: You are a pastor, how can you say that? I tell them: If you love the world, then love it well, worship all the idols, and the idols can listen to you. Unlike our God, if you love the world, He will discipline you; if you love both the world and God, it will become unmanageable! If your relationship with God is not one of love, then there is a problem!
Some people are lukewarm towards God; then what can you be either cold or hot towards? That is deadly! So you must know God's plan, God's deeds! If you do not know, then isn't that terrible? Know that calamities are prepared for those adulterous Christians who want to love the world and also gain benefits from God! We must understand what God's plan is, God's plan is to be united with Jesus Christ through the church, the church is the bride of Jesus Christ, and in the future, people will also become the bride of Jesus Christ in the church. With this as the foundation, you can understand this chapter.
Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’ (Hosea 2:1)
This passage is speaking to us Christians and the church. If you do not look at it from the perspective of the church, you cannot read it at all. Do you know why you cannot read it?
Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts. (Hosea 2:2)
Know that the church came out of the Israelites! How did it come out of the Israelites? Because Jesus was a Jew, the earliest church was the Jerusalem church, and later there was the church of the Gentiles. We must know that Israel is the mother of the church, and the church came out of it. The statement that the church came out of the Israelites can be difficult to understand. If I do not read the Bible from this perspective, I will be confused! I will not be able to explain to you what is going on, so it says in the fourth verse:
I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery. Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’ (Hosea 2:4-5)
Isn't this a mess? You cannot understand it! So, we understand God's plan, and looking at the Book of Hosea from the perspective of the New Testament, it is no longer confusing.
Establishing a Loving Relationship with God
Do you know what a loving relationship is? A loving relationship is not a relationship between master and servant, but a relationship of mutual love! If you do not have a loving relationship with God, you cannot have passion or excitement for God; if you do not have a loving relationship with God, you and God are in a master-servant relationship, one is a slave and the other is a master. A loving relationship is that you love me, and I love you; it is an emotional connection. Therefore, Chinese Mingding Destiny has invented many new concepts, but these concepts are all extended from the Bible.
Chinese Mingding Destiny speaks of the emotions between man and God, establishing an emotional connection with God, absolutely not a relationship where I use Him and He uses me! Some people think: I will give some offerings to God so that God will support me. If you give God a duck and God does something for you, what kind of relationship is that? That is an idol relationship! We must all know that in this chapter, God repositioned the relationship between Christians and God, which is a relationship of love.
Is the relationship between the Israelites and God a loving relationship? When did the Israelites ever love God? The Israelites merely used God as their tool. How many of us also use God as a tool? Some people have a headache and ask the pastor to pray for their head; if their buttocks hurt, they also ask the pastor to pray for their buttocks; if their legs hurt, they also ask the pastor to pray for their legs. When have you ever loved God? When have you ever established a loving relationship with God? I tell you, if my relationship with God is not because of love, then it is a problem, and I will lead everyone into the ditch! You must know what you truly love! Do not blame me for not telling you, if you love the world, you really should not stay here, loving the world is called adultery, and if you love the world and use God to love the world, can you avoid suffering?
Everyone must establish a loving relationship with God. Why? Because this chapter describes entirely marital relationships, because only marital relationships are true love. In fact, God created Adam and Eve to foreshadow Jesus Christ and the church in the future, which is the most perfect marital relationship, perfect unity, the two becoming one. Jesus Christ is the bone of our bones and the flesh of our flesh; we are also the bone of Jesus Christ's bones and the flesh of His flesh. But the current church is becoming the customs of this world, creating a lot of worldly problems, and the reason is simple, because too few people love God!
I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. (Hosea 2:19)
In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; they will no longer be invoked by name. (Hosea 2:16-17)
If you are someone who loves God, you can certainly draw abundant promises from God; you can certainly become God's people; you will certainly receive God's mercy, and God will betroth us to Himself in righteousness, justice, love, and compassion! In that day, declares the Lord, you will call me 'my husband,' that is, Father; you will no longer call me 'my master,' because I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; these names will no longer be invoked. If you do not have a loving relationship with God, then you are certainly a lukewarm person!
I often encounter some Christians who say to me: Teacher, what more do you want from me? I respond by saying: What can I want from you? They give me another response: I come to Bible study on Wednesdays and Fridays, and I pray with you on Tuesdays; what more do you want from me? I then ask them: What about Sundays? They answer: I come on Sundays too. I rarely see couples in the throes of love saying impatient words: Hurry up! I'm waiting for you downstairs; I've been waiting for an hour in the dead of winter! Couples in love are very patient because they have love that makes them do that.
Loving God means being willing to spend more time with God! At this time, you will not say: Teacher! What more do you want from me? God says: I don't want anything from you. When the relationship between God and man reaches this point, it is not a relationship between master and servant, but a relationship of love, a marital relationship. God created Adam and Eve, foreshadowing Christ and the church in the future. Everyone must remember, do not build a church that becomes a bone of contention for Jesus Christ, that would be terrible!
When I first built the church, I was thinking: do not let it become a thorn in God's bone, a thorn in God's flesh. How many people know God's plan? God hopes to establish a loving relationship with us! When you first came to the church, you were healed, and later God became your medicine, when you were hungry, He became your food, taking God as medicine and food, if there is no loving relationship, this medicine will become poison, and this food will be taken as trouble.
Becoming What God Plants
While a large crowd was gathering and people were traveling to see Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he scattered it, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Other seed fell on rock, and when it came up, it withered because it had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. (Luke 8:4-7)
The Lord Jesus once told a story of sowing seeds. After God sowed the seeds, some fell on rocky ground, and some fell on good soil, yielding a crop thirty, sixty, or a hundred times what was sown. If it falls on rocky ground, it will be crushed to death, if it falls among thorns, it will also be squeezed to death. Why is it crushed to death? Because of the love of the world, being entangled by the things of the world. If people are entangled by the things of the world, then they cannot love God, and in the end, they are thrown on the side of the road to be eaten by birds.
Thus saith the Lord, That day thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name. (Hosea 2:16-17)
Therefore, being planted by God, Jezreel means God plants.
And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel. And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God. (Hosea 2:21-23)
Some do not understand this. Can you? Even those not of His people, God plants? God scatters His seed from the heavens, sowing it in your heart. Some will then love God, while others will seek to exploit Him. Some will say, What is this? Can it be eaten or used as medicine? Can it be spent? Deeming it useless, they cast aside the seed.
But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 13:8-9)
God scatters seeds in the hearts of all under Heaven. If one responds to God, they become what God has planted, reaping a return of thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold! You are planted by God, for He scatters the seed of the Gospel, the Word of God, in people's hearts, causing them to ponder the matter of living!
I often encounter people who say to me, Pastor! I am just like you. I ask them, In what way? They respond, Since childhood, I have had no interest in living. I reply, Good! Do you have an interest now? They say, Now I do. In my heart, I think, Oh dear! Having had no interest since childhood, now suddenly there is interest. Some see through things from a young age, but cannot see through them when it truly matters. One must have a pursuit of eternal life. If one has no pursuit of eternal life, no understanding or desire for the seed, God's seed cannot be scattered in your heart, for you have no pursuit of eternal life. If one's mind is only on building a business, creating a unicorn, they will pour all their love into these things, only to reap toil and trouble!
Some are less than monkeys. Even monkeys have hope for eternal life, yet some people do not. Is this not strange? Consider Journey to the West. A large part of the story concerns Sun Wukong's hope for eternal life, finally finding the Patriarch Subhuti, and later causing havoc in Heaven, raiding the Queen Mother of the West's Peach Orchard, wanting to eat the peaches of immortality. So, this story is very interesting, yet people lack the hope of eternal life. The seed of God is scattered, and even in a monkey's heart, there is a pursuit of eternal life, yet some people have no such pursuit!
Therefore, to be planted by God, let us examine our hearts to see what they contain. If they are filled with love for the world, your future will certainly be no better than that of the Israelites. The Bible says, If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed. One must establish a loving relationship with God, and when there is a loving relationship with God, the Word of God will grow within us and become what God has planted. If you have no hope of eternal life within you, you will take the small matters of this life too seriously. Sometimes, I am truly astonished at how much people love the world, which God finds frustrating, and He cannot save those who love the world!
And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord. Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. (Hosea 2:13-14)
Be careful not to love the world while loving God, for it will bring many illnesses! God has had mercy on you, healed you, and then you can love the world again? You used to leak urine, but after being healed, you go back to loving the world? Do you want to love until you leak urine again? You were healed of fecal incontinence, will you continue to love the world? If you still love the world, then your Mingding Destiny is not good! How many times must you experience grace before you can return to God from this wilderness? Therefore, destroy all hope in this life!
The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. God brought them out of Egypt and first led them to the wilderness for training, destroying the worldly hopes and dreams within them, so that He could bring them into the Promised Land! But after they were fed and satisfied, they loved the world again. Therefore, Hosea wrote of the adulterous Israelites! Later, the Israelites ate their own excrement and drank their own urine, ending in tragedy! People must have the hope of eternal life and begin to learn to love God, to understand God's great plan, so as to enter into eternal life. If one has no hope of eternal life, after death, everything is extinguished.
Learn a lesson from the Israelites
Having read so much of Israelite history, from Samuel, Kings, and the Prophets, can you learn a lesson from the history of the Israelites? The ending is tragic for God's people who love the world! If you feel this is not what you want, then find a theory and faith that embraces the love of the world, but I tell you, it is miserable for Christians to love the world. Sometimes, I look and worry for you, and also for myself and everyone, for our God is a jealous God, and those who love the world are accursed.
If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha. (1 Corinthians 16:22)
Who is the curse in the Bible for? It is for the Israelites and Christians. Why did the Israelites worship the golden calf? Because in all their calculations, they felt that worshiping the golden calf was a good idea. They did not look at the issue from God's perspective but from man's perspective, catering to the will of man. Among us, there is an elderly man in his seventies who asks, What will I do for retirement in the future? If one is always thinking about these things, it will cause worry, for it is not thinking from God's perspective! I am not stopping you from planning for retirement. I am encouraging you to love God. All our benefits are in Jesus Christ, and all God's promises to us are in Jesus Christ.
If we can learn a lesson from the Israelites, we must have a deep understanding of the will of man. Peter was very considerate of man's will. To be considerate of the will of man is Satan! Jeroboam, King of Israel, thought, I must boost the country's economy. How? By building a golden calf. This approach was entirely human political economics, doing things in a lively manner according to the world's logic, but provoking God's anger. If you are not God's people, you can do anything. If you are planted by God and continue to love the world, the ending will be a tragedy. I remind everyone again, if a tragic ending comes, it cannot be reversed!
Recognize the Israelites' Adultery
Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. (1 Kings 12:28-29)
In the previous chapter, we spoke of the Israelites' adultery. It sounds reasonable because if you look at it from the perspective of political economics, you will feel that Jeroboam did well. But if you look at it from God's perspective, you will feel it is a tragedy! What is the logic within us? We must change the logic within us. If you have a system of human logic within you, then you are an adulterous people, unfaithful and untrusting towards God.
If God cannot solve our problems of retirement and food, then is He still God? But the Israelites felt that God could not, and that everything they had came from their own labor and hard work. If you offer to God what you have earned through your own hard work, God will tell you to get lost, for God wants us to offer Him what we have received from Him.
I often say, If you do not understand the meaning of offering, please do not offer! For example, some of our brothers and sisters seize a good opportunity to sell their houses when prices are at their highest, and then offer a tenth of the proceeds to God. Others sell their houses when prices are at their highest but keep all the money, feeling it is what they have earned through their hard work and cannot be offered. I just want to tell everyone to use their brains well and offer to God what belongs to Him. If you keep what belongs to God, you will know whether it was worth it when the curse ferments! If we live by our own hands and swords, that is Esau, living under a curse.
Everyone must ponder slowly and understand what is meant by adultery. Adultery is relying on one's own hands. In fact, if we rely on our own hands, we cannot stop colds, COVID-19, illnesses, or disasters. People are not qualified to rely on themselves, but people can perhaps rely on themselves for three meals a day, but these cannot determine the direction of your Mingding Destiny.
The Israelites struggled and struggled, relying on their own hands, actually like Esau, not true Israelites. Brothers and sisters living under a curse must begin to repent quickly. As long as you repent, there is still a chance! Do not feel that some things make sense. The Israelites' love for the world and the things of the world is a carnal system, living by the sword, which in God's eyes is a harlot. If your faith is also a harlot, then you might as well not believe in the Lord!
Therefore I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. (Hosea 2:6-7)
Some run to Hangzhou to marry a wealthy person. Is it because they love that person? No, it is because that person is rich. This is not a loving relationship; it is a relationship of exploitation. If one loves money, even the dogs on the street know it! What kind of person you are, do people not know? So, we must re-understand the adultery that God speaks of. Actually, God did not really care too much that David killed Uriah and took his wife Bathsheba, because that adultery and adultery against God are not the same thing. We must re-understand the Israelites' adultery, either wholeheartedly loving God or wholeheartedly loving the world.
If anyone does not love God, let him be accursed
If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha. (1 Corinthians 16:22)
These words were not spoken in the Old Testament but in the New Testament. Although the age after Jesus Christ is the age of grace, adultery is absolutely not tolerated. We must re-understand this and establish a loving relationship with God, not a relationship of exploitation. God is not your medicine, nor your food. If you treat God as your food, it will be troublesome. If anyone does not love God, let him be accursed. We must re-understand these words.
May God bless everyone!