Hello people, how are you doing today? Hope all is turning out well for you, this I ask for you in Almighty Jesus name. Well I don’t have Grace Encounters 2, 3, 4 today for you; I am still to procure it. I still however have something interesting for you from my Bible reading time. As you may have noticed, am writing has turned lesser now as I am now being tutored music and a good amount of my time is going in picking this up, as I want to diversify my writing ability and go into song writing too.
What makes the Bible unique among religious books is that God spoke through the prophets, His Spirit possessed them and what came through the mouths of the prophets or from their Biblical writing was directly from God. There were no in-betweens (angels or whatever) God used the prophets as mediums but never as in-betweens. We know this because when God spoke through the prophets He spoke in the first person, you may consider the scripture below; about God in the Bible: you will never find something like “he does not beget, nor is he begotten”, In the Bible God declares his identity in the first person “I” never in the third “he”. Can there ever be any creation (angel, man or soul) capable of declaring “who is God?” or “ what He can or cannot do?”? God uses mediums but He still speaks for Himself in the first person, it is the weak who have need for a mouthpiece but never the great and there is nothing greater than God, & so God spoke in the first person even through His prophets because this Biblical God is Omnipresent. Let us read Hosea 11:9 from the Old Testament, which is one of numerous scripture of God revealing His identity.
Lets read Hosea 11:9
I will not execute my burning anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.
If you were to think from a strictly monotheist point of view of the above scripture then you are taking what you want from the scripture and not exactly all that you are given. Allow me to show you God declaring His Tri-union Identity here.
Consider from the above scripture “for I am God and not a man” this was written by the prophet Hosea before the coming of Jesus as man, it however refers to ‘God the Father’, for the above two statement talk of “will” and Biblically everything that happens is as per the Father’s will because He is the Dude with all the plans and He alone knows their timing (Mark 13:32), meaning all that happens through all creation happens either because He will it or allows it for the greater good of His people.
Mark 13:32
“No one knows, however, when that day or hour will come — neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son; only the Father knows.
Coming back to Hosea 11:9 “the Holy One in your midst”; refers to ‘God the Holy Spirit’ for He is God’s presence among His people.
Psalms 51:11 (from the Psalms of king David)
Do not banish me from your presence; do not take your holy spirit away from me.
Finally coming to the last part of Hosea 11:9 “and I will not come in wrath.”; refers to the ‘God the Son’ taking support of John 3:17.
John 3:17
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
To strengthen my stand showing you the references made in Hosea declaring Jesus clearly as God, I would like to quote Hosea 13:4 & Hosea 14:8.
Hosea 13:4
4 But I am the Lord your God
from the land of Egypt;
you know no God but me,
and besides me there is no savior.
Let us cross study Hosea 13:4 with Matthew 2.
Matthew 2:13:15 (Jesus as a child)
13 After they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said, “Herod will be looking for the child in order to kill him. So get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you to leave.”
14 Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and left during the night for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until Herod died. This was done to make what the Lord had said through the prophet come true, “I called my Son out of Egypt.”
Matthew 2:15 refers to Hosea 11:1
Hosea 11:1
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
So you see the Son who the Father called out of Egypt (Mat 2:15 // Hos 11:1) was Jesus the Lord God of Israel (Hos 13:4)
Now let’s check Hosea 14:8
8 The people of Israel will have nothing more to do with idols;
I will answer their prayers and take care of them;
Like an evergreen tree I will shelter them;
I am the source of all their blessings.”
Allow me to show you line by line through Hosea 14:8 unraveling who is Jesus. Line 1: It is important to note here that idols mentioned above are not merely crafted gods but what we hold on to more dearly than God, holding on to anything other than God was just as intolerable in the Old Testament (Isaiah 31:1) as it is was in the New Testament. Here is what Jesus said in Mark 10:29 about where people’s priorities should be.
Mark 10:29-30
29 “Yes,” Jesus said to them, “and I tell you that anyone who leaves home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and for the gospel, 30 will receive much more in this present age. He will receive a hundred times more houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields — and persecutions as well; and in the age to come he will receive eternal life.
Mark 10:29, is a reflection of the very first commandments in Exodus 20:3, you shall put nothing before the Lord your God. As for line 2 of Hosea 14:8: here below is scripture showing elders falling before Jesus (Biblically referred to as the Lamb of God) and with the prayers of God’s people, whom He has answered making them prosper.
Revelations 5:7-10
7 The Lamb went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who sits on the throne. 8 As he did so, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each had a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. 9 They sang a new song:
“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to break open its seals.
For you were killed, and by your sacrificial death you bought for God
people from every tribe, language, nation, and race.
10 You have made them a kingdom of priests to serve our God,
and they shall rule on earth.”
Line 3 & 4: Read Galatians 3:13-14
13 But by becoming a curse for us Christ has redeemed us from the curse that the Law brings; for the scripture says, “Anyone who is hanged on a tree is under God’s curse.” 14 Christ did this in order that the blessing which God promised to Abraham might be given to the Gentiles by means of Christ Jesus, so that through faith we might receive the Spirit promised by God.
The Bible says that the Law brought with it death for it made known what sin was, where there was no Law people were not held accountable to sin (Rom 5:13) because it was only through the Law right was made known from wrong.
Romans 5:13, 21
There was sin in the world before the Law was given; but where there is no law, no account is kept of sins.
..
21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Law is like a reflection of the ‘fruit of the tree of knowledge of right and wrong’, which Adam and Eve ate in disobedience in the God’s Garden (Eden). The reason Adam and Eve were not allowed to then eat the fruit of the tree of life after their disobedience is because the tree of life symbolized eternal life in union with God but sin (Adams disobedience) and God are like oil water and so until God worked out a solution for sin, there was no way God and man would reunite and stay that way eternally. The fruit of the tree of knowledge or right and wrong like the Law; brought into the picture sin leading to death. This fruit was different from the fruit of the ‘tree on life’ in the same Garden. In Jesus, His death made freely available to us all the fruit of the tree of life, which became His blood shed on the cross for the forgiveness of sin (Eph 1:7).This took the outcome of sin made known by the Law/tree of knowledge of right and wrong, which was judgment leading to death. Just as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of right and wrong did not possess the key to eternal life, in the same way Law’s purpose was never Salvation but just to give man the idea of right from wrong. So the evergreen tree mentioned in Line 3, is the cross, which sheltered God’s people from death, blessing them with eternal life in union with God (Romans 5:21), the source of all things.
Eph 1:7
7 For by the blood of Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is the grace of God,
So that concludes this article writing from the book of Hosea of the Old Testament; showing you that the all powerful God of all creation is individually the Father, Son and Holy Spirit working in unison as One God. Allow me to put a fitting conclusion to this extract from the book of Hosea. I shall use the same conclusion as the book of Hosea.
Hosea 14:9
9 May those who are wise understand what is written here, and may they take it to heart. The Lord’s ways are right, and righteous people live by following them, but sinners stumble and fall because they ignore them.
Making known the Defeated Dragon 