Tracing the Isaac Sons Chapter 2
Chapter 2 :To my mind the book of Hosea is one of the most fascinating books in the Bible. Incidentally , it was reading this book that opened my understanding and convinced me in the early part of my ministry that the Anglo-Saxon people must be the Israel people of the Bible. Certainly a person can have personal salvation, be born again by the spirit of God , without a knowledge and understanding of Bible history and Bible prophecy ; but if these are not important , why is most of God's Word by far devoted to history and prophecy ? Christ and the apostles exhorted and commanded especially those living in the end-time to study Bible prophecy.
Hosea prophesied before the time of Jeremiah and his prophecy is devoted largely to Israel. ( Jeremiah's prophecy , as we have indicated , is devoted largely to Judah . ) We begin by quoting Hosea 1:1 " The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea , the son of Beeri , in the days of Uzziah , Jothan , Ahaz , and Hezekiah , kings of Judah , and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash , king of Israel.
Note that Israel and Judah are two separate nations with two separate capitals. Note also the contrast in the prophecies concerning Israel and Judah. With the very opposite pronounced upon them in prophecy , how can they be the same in subsequent history ? They have an opposite course and an opposite destiny.
In verse 6 of this first chapter , god speaks concerning Israel , " I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel ; but I will utterly take them away. " This is very definite and clear. Ten-tribe Israel was utterly and completely taken into Assyrian captivity.
Concerning Judah , verse 7 reads, " But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God , and will not save them by the bow , nor by sword , nor by battle, by horses , nor by horsemen. "
Hosea foretold that which actually took place. Earlier in this Bible study we read from II Kings 17 and 18. chapters 17 , 18 , and 19 of II Kings tell how the Assyrians came , first taking ten tribe Israel into the Assyrian captivity, and then four or five years later taking all of the fenced cities of Judah. The Assyrians came once again and tried to take Jerusalem ( the balance of Judah ) into captivity.
Hezekiah was king at this time , and we read in II Kings 19 that when King Hezekiah received a letter of ultimatum from the Assyrian king , he turned to God in prayer. His prayer as recorded in II Kings 19: 15-19 is beautiful , a tremendous inspiration to anyone who is in a position where he must and should trust God.
Verse 19 reads, " ... O Lord our God , I beseech thee , save thou us out of his hand , that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God , even thou only . "
God answered Hezekiah's prayer and sent the prophet Isaiah to the king with this message ( verse 32 ) : " therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with a shield, nor cast a bank against it. " In other words , God promised to defend Jerusalem. How did he do this ?
Verse 35 states , " And it came to pass that night , that the angel of the Lord went out , and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred four-score and five thousand .... " and the army of the Assyrians departed and went back to their own city and region. We also read that the Assyrian king's own sons slew him as he worshiped.
Recall Hosea prophesied that God would deliver Judah from the Assyrian , not by the use of " bow , nor by sword , nor by battle , by horses nor by horsemen. " The Almighty sent forth one angel and slew 185,000 Assyrians. And Judah remained in Palestine for 100 years after Israel was taken into the Assyrian captivity, as we have pointed out earlier.
Verse 10 and 11 of Hosea 1 speaks volumes. These two verses alone should satisfy any thinking, open-minded person that the Jewish people of today cannot possibly be the Israel people. The fact is , they are not even all of Judah.
Verse 10 reads , " Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea ( in other words , the Israel people were to be a great multitude of people, which the Jewish people have never been and are not today) , which cannot be measured or numbered ; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them , Ye are the sons of the living God. "
The Jewish people have never been called " not God's people " but ten tribe Israel have - the Anglo-Saxon people have been called Gentiles. This is very plain and uncomplicated when one reads with an open mind and lets the Word speak for itself. In the first place , Israel was to be a great multitude of people ; and next , these ten tribe Israel people were to lose their identity and would not be called God's people. And there is a third identification mark : the Israel people were to be called the sons of the living God. They were to become the nations of Christendom.
Hosea did not say they would all individually be born-again believers , but that they would be spoken of as the sons of God or the nations of Christendom.
And now verse 11 : " Then ( this is a word indicating time - at the time ten-tribe Israel was a great multitude , at the time they were not known as the Israel people and at the time they were called the nations of Christendom ) shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head , and they shall come up out of the land ; for great shall be the day of Jezreel . "
Who represents Judah today is a subject by itself , but the Anglo-Saxon people , the Isaac-sons , were to come together at the end of the age ; and this coming together, this re-uniting or re-gathering, was to take place in the great day of Jezreel , the particular time in which we are living.
Many very significant things have been taking place and will continue to take place relative to the Israel nations - to Germany , France , Great Britain , the United States and Canada and the other Anglo-Saxon people - and we will progressively get more light on these happenings. The prophesied re-gathering or coming under one head may mean first a military head ; it may mean coming under the throne of David ( and of course the throne of David can be moved ) . Tremendous things are in the making. our purpose here , however , is not to speculate as to the future but merely to set forth fulfilled bible prophecy. This is the correct way to teach the bible because it establishes faith and gives understanding , hope , and comfort.
It stands to reason that in this Bible study I cannot comment on every verse in the book of Hosea but can merely " hit the high spots " and give some of its long range prophecies concerning Israel. Hosea 2:6 gives a very important revelation :
" Therefore , behold , I will hedge up thy way with thorns , and make a wall , that she shall not find her paths. " this is the exact opposite of what we are being told by many good sincere Christians who insist that ten tribe Israel found its way back into Palestine at the time that Judah came back from Babylon. Hosea here said the Israel people would not find their way back , that God would hedge up their way with thorns. Thorns symbolize enemy and heathen people, the Medes and Persians and those who had taken ten tribe Israel into the Assyrian captivity. The Israel people found themselves hedged in between these heathen people and Palestine - they found the thorns. And Israel did not find her way back, just as Hosea prophesied.
Verse 11 gives another prophecy pronounced upon ten tribe Israel : " I will cause all her mirth to cease , her feast days , her new moons , and her sabbaths , and all her solemn feasts. "
People sometimes say the Anglo-Saxons cannot be the Israel people of the Bible because they do not observe the feast days. No , they do not , but this is actually another proof that they are ten tribe Israel - they were to lose all of these feast days.
Let us look next at verse 14 , a long range prophecy foretelling what the Lord would do to this people, the Isaac-sons of today :
" Therefore , behold I will allure her , and bring her into the wilderness , and speak comfortably unto her. " This beautiful verse speaks volumes. What did the prophet Hosea mean ?
In verse 6 we are told that Israel was not to find her way back into Palestine, and in verse 14 God said He would allure her and bring her into the wilderness. The Israel people were cattlemen with herds of cattle , just as their forefathers Abraham , Isaac and Jacob were. You will recall that when Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt , Pharaoh was told that these Isaac-sons were cattlemen or ranchers. One of the things , then , that God used to entice or allure these people into the wilderness of Europe was good pastureland , and as the Israel people followed the good pasturelands , they migrated up into the undeveloped areas of Germany , Spain , France , Great Britain , the Scandinavian peninsula , etc. They first became known as the Germanic tribes and then broke off into many different tribes, becoming great nations.
Note the last part of verse 14 promises that God would " ... speak comfortably unto her. " God spoke to this people and they began to have great spiritual revivals and awakenings , exactly as prophesied.
Verse 15 continues , " And I will give unto her vineyards from thence ... " This is symbolic language indicating that in this wilderness area the Israel people would be established, would grow and develop. They are likened unto a vineyard or something cared for.
" ... and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there , as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt." The " valley of Achor " means trouble, and certainly there was trouble when the Israel people were uprooted and deported from Northern Palestine and taken up into the region of the Black and Caspian Seas. They could not return to their own land of Palestine , but in their trouble they found a door of hope. This hope and escape was North , Northwest.
Note that as these people migrated up into the wilderness of Europe, God began to visit them with light , truth , and revelation ; and they began to sing. They began to receive and accept the Christian faith , which is the one singing religion.
it is interesting to note here that Israel was to have an experience similar to that which the Israel people had when they came out of the land of Egypt. This , I believe , has reference to the establishment of our own nation , this great constitutional republic. As previously mentioned, Hosea actually speaks volumes in a few verses. Note the similarity between the founding of our nation and what happened when our forefathers , the Isaac-sons , came up out of Egypt.
In the case of Egypt , the Israel people had to cross the Red Sea ; in the founding of our nation it was the Atlantic Ocean. In both instances the intervention and the overruling providence of the Almighty were evident. And in both cases , the people had one purpose : the freedom to worship God and to establish a scriptural and Christian civil administration. We might mention , too , that there were 13 tribes ( two tribes from Joseph ) when Israel came out of Egypt and 13 colonies in the founding of our nation.
Under Moses a rule of law was established ; and in setting up our Constitution , the founding fathers , too , established a rule of law , not of man. This does not seem significant or strange to us today because it is the only rule we have really known but up to the foundation of our nation , there had been no nation established on a scriptural rule of law from the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.
A form of government was established in this land where the rulers in authority are servants to the people. ( editor's note : see Matthew 20: 25 - 28 ; 23: 10-12 and Mark 9:35 ; 10 : 44 ) Here again , that is the only system we have known in this great constitutional republic , but it was new and strange in the days in which our nation was founded. it was also new and strange when Moses adopted and established this principal. The rulers in places of civil authority were responsible to God , and they were to serve the people by administering God's laws.
Going on to Hosea 2:16 we read , " And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi ( husband ) ... " This is a progressive revelation of what has transpired and taken place over many hundreds of years as the Anglo-Saxon people accepted the Christian faith. Do you see any significance in the fact that they are the only people of all history who have officially accepted the Christian faith ?
The verse continues , " ... and shalt call me no more Baali. " Verse 17 explains , " For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth ... " That is what God did. Our forefathers went into captivity largely because they began to worship Baal : even when they found themselves in Assyrian captivity, they began to worship idols. But when the right time came , God gave them the Word and they gradually turned.
The last part of verse 17 states , " ... and they shall no more be remembered by their name. " Some wonder why the Anglo-Saxon people are not called Israel if they are the Israel of the Bible. Why were they not called Israel from the time of their captivity right up to the present hour ? Because it was prophesied that they would not be called by their name of Israel. They lost their name , just as they lost their rituals , feast days and sabbaths - God took them away.
Verse 18: " And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. " this is symbolic language stating that God will make them the most powerful people on earth and give them great military might and dominion. They would overcome the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven, symbolizing evil , negative , destructive unscriptural forces. The prophet foresees the day when peace will cover the entire earth as is stated , " I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth... " This has not happened as yet, but we are closer to it than most of us realize.
Verse 19 and 20 continue with a prophecy pertaining to the Anglo-Saxon people, revealing especially what has taken place here in the United States of America. " And I will betroth thee unto me forever ; yea , I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment , and in lovingkindness , and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord. "
As one compares the lot , position and possessions of the Anglo-Saxon people to those of the people of Africa , India , China and other nations , one must agree that God has especially blessed and favored the Anglo-Saxons. The term " betrothed thee " indicates God's choice , favor , mercy , and goodwill toward the Israel people. Certainly He has had to discipline us and bring severe judgment upon us ( as He is doing at the present time ) , but this is a passing thing. We will learn our lesson and be straightened out.
I repeat that throughout 2,000 years of church history , the Anglo-Saxons are the only people who have known the Lord Jesus Christ. Other peoples and nations have known about the Lord only as we have sent missionaries to them. And when missionaries depart , these people lose their knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures. Not so with the European peoples and their descendants - they have had one spiritual revival and spiritual awakening after the other for hundreds of years.
We go on from verse 21 : " And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth ... ". As we go back into the Old Scriptures , we discover that God used the heavens as a witness. He swore by heaven and earth , for instance , as to what He would do for this people , for the descendants of Abraham , Isaac , and Jacob. In this verse He calls heaven and earth to witness , behold and see that He has fulfilled His Word in blessing, directing , protecting , and favoring this people. Furthermore , God will use them to bless all the nations of the earth as He promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
" And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine , and the oil , and they shall hear Jezreel. " In the Old Scriptures , God's special covenant , promise and prophecy to Abraham , Isaac and Jacob was corn , wine and oil - in other words , great wealth , possessions , prosperity and power.
" And I will sow her unto me in the earth ... " the word " sow " is used as a symbol throughout the Old Scriptures and by the Lord in the kingdom parables. Remember the Lord said that this kingdom nation was like seed sown in a field - the tares came up , but the grain developed , also, the grain being the children of the kingdom. The Lord also spoke of the mustard seed sown. If ever a nation was planted by the intervention and purpose of God , it was the United States of America. No nation from the time of Ezra and Nehemiah has had the planting by the Almighty as has our country.
" . . . and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy . . . " In the first chapter , Hosea prophesied that Israel was not to obtain mercy. She was not to come back into the land of Palestine. but the word here is , " I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy. " Where will this mercy be manifest ? In the United States and Canada , where God enticed , drew and forced the Isaac-sons by circumstances to venture out into the undeveloped and unoccupied areas of the New World.
" . . . and I will say to them which were not my people ( in Hosea 1 we were told that the Israel people were to be called " not my people " ) , thou art my people ; and they shall say , Thou art my God ." I trust this passage of Scripture brings light and revelation - it is tremendous , glorious and beautiful.
We turn next to Hosea 5:15 ,which states , " I will go and return to my place , till they acknowledge their offence , and seek my face : in their affliction they will seek me early. " The Almighty speaks through his prophet Hosea to the Israel people , indicating He would leave them and not intervene until they acknowledged their offence and sought His face. As the verse states, " in their affliction they will seek me early. "
History shows that every time the Anglo-Saxon people get into enough trouble , distress and punishment , they always return to the true and living god. And we will turn again. Some people imagine we are too sinful to turn to god, but when we get our " fill " of the punishment God is pouring upon us , we will turn to the Word of God for our particular time.
Our next reference is Hosea 6:1 - " Come , and let us return unto the Lord: for He hath torn, and he will heal us ; he hath smitten , and he will bind us up. " Israel certainly was torn up root and branch when she was taken out of the land of Palestine by the Assyrians. We must recognize that the judgment and affliction that is upon us today is the hand of God dealing with us. This has been Israel's past history time and time again , but when God's people have turned to him , He has always healed them. Thank God , He will again.
Verse 2 is fascinating and interesting. It reads , " After two days will he revive us : in the third day he will raise us up , and we shall live in his sight. " Here again , one little verse of one sentence actually speaks volumes. Thousands and thousands of books have been written showing the fulfillment of this one verse.
We are told that after two days the Israel people ( who were placed in the Assyrian captivity under sentence and punishment because they departed from the national message ) would be revived. This is challenging because two days in god's reckoning of time is 2,000 years. What happened 2,000 years from the time of the Assyrian captivity ? Something tremendous took place , one of the most significant happenings of all human history. At that time Wycliffe gave to the people of England the first Bible in their own language. And the giving of the Bible , as you know , brought on a new era.
It took several hundred years before the Bible actually went to the common people , which brings up this thought. Some seem to have the idea that the Old Scriptures are not for us today. But do you realize that the common people have had the Bible for little more than 300 or 400 years ? It was not until John Gutenberg of Germany invented the printing press in 1450 that the common lay people began to receive the Scriptures and were in a position to read the Bible for themselves. Surely the Almighty knew this when He wrote the Scriptures, so the Old Scriptures are written primarily for us today.
We are told that during the time of Wycliffe people paid as much as $ 200 ( equivalent ) for one handwritten copy of the Bible. There was such a revival, hunger , and desire for the word of god that those who could , paid $ 200 for a copy , and those who could not afford it rented portions of the Scripture. They kept these portions for a few days and then paid for the rental time. Some traded livestock and some sold loads of hay in order to have just a portion of the Scripture for a short time.
Was this not a revival ? Was this not fulfillment of verse 2 promising that after two days ( 2,000 years ) God would revive His people ? The verse continues , " In the third day ( and thank God we are now in this period ) he will raise us up , and we shall live in his sight. " this is the full manifestation of the kingdom of god on earth , first among His kingdom people in our great kingdom nation, then throughout the Israel people of the Old World , and through them to all peoples of the whole world.
Verse 3 : " Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord ... " We will not have understanding, revelation , and comfort for our day unless we have the courage and fortitude to " follow on " and accept new light and truth from the Scriptures. We should not believe everything we hear , but we should examine it in the light of the Scripture. The Bereans did this in the days of the Apostle Paul , and they were spoken of as being noble. The noble and fair thing for us to do is to consider all things in the light of Scripture , and if they are in harmony with the Word of God , follow on , and we will know the Lord.
" ... his going forth is prepared as the morning ; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth ." This beautiful verse tells in symbolic language of the blessing, favor and mercy , also the cleansing and refreshing that will come to God's kingdom people as they go on to know and conform to the Word of God. We must conform not only to the gospekl of personal salvation but to the gospel of the kingdom , God's national message and special covenants for His chosen servant people.