Judgment on the house of God

Hosea, the prophet of God, exhorted the backsliding people of Israel who had been afflicted by God, to return unto Him. God had not spared His chosen people but afflicted them for the multitude of their transgressions and sins in execution of His righteous judgment. “The Lord shall judge His people” (Heb.10:30). Similarly, our God, the righteous Judge is judging His children who have backslidden “for the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (I Pet.4:17). His soul “shall have no pleasure in him” who draws back (Heb.10:38).

Prophetic message

Of the 7 special prophetic messages given by the Holy Spirit to the 7 New Testament churches as in Revelation Chapters 2 and 3, the last message meant for the Church of the Laodiceans, the 7th one is prophetically applicable to the end-time Church too. God is now chastening His children in these last days because He loves them. “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous, therefore, and repent” (Rev.3: 19).

Do not be weary of His correction as it is our loving Father who has torn or smitten you, “My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His correction. For whom the Lord loveth, He correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth” (Pro.3: 11-12). If you endure chastening, then God deals with you, as with sons; for what son is he whom his father does not chasten? Without chastisement, you shall be illegitimate children, and not sons. You are chastened for your profit that you may share His holiness (Heb.12: 6 to 11).

Two days

Meditate upon Hos.6: 2. “Two days” signifies a very short interval between His judgment and His restoration. Are you now undergoing convalescence after being wounded? The period of such convalescence would not be very long but very short. In the Bible terminology, it is “two days”. In your personal life, it is not literally or numerically 2 days, 2 months, or 2 years. Logically speaking, you cannot heal yourself of a wound in literally two days. A short period continues until you repent and return to the Lord. Hosea refers to a quick, divine healing of your inner man, during the short period of convalescence. When he says “two days”, he points at the fast approaching “third day” which is more important than the two days of convalescence.

During the period of convalescence, we should examine our lives, repent of our backslidings, forsake our old and sinful ways and finally return to the Lord. If God has smitten you, it is time to repent of your backslidings and return unto Him immediately before the dawn of the third day, which is fast approaching. “If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways; and then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chr. 7:14).

God’s healing is conditional on your humbling yourself, and praying and seeking His face and turning from your wicked ways.

Return unto Him before it is too late – before you, “the children of the Kingdom” are cast into outer darkness (Matt.8: 12) – before “every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire” (Matt. 3:10) – before the Kingdom of God is taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof (Matt.21: 43) – before the Bridegroom comes and the door is shut (Matt.25: 10) – before the Lord spews you (who are the members of the present –day churches typical of the Church of the Laodecians) out of His mouth (Rev.3:16).

Unless we repent, there is no point in our returning to Him. Unless we shed tears over our disobedience to Him, over our sinful ways, over our failures in evangelism, there is no point in our returning to Him. Our returning to the Lord is to be preceded by our repentance. It is time for us to entreat our Lord in the following prophetic words spoken by Jeremiah :

“O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for Thy Name’s sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee…………………why hast Thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble …………….We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we have sinned against thee…Do not abhor us, for Thy Name’s sake, do not disgrace the Throne of Thy Glory; remember, break not Thy covenant with us………………….” (Jer. 14:7 & 19-21).

In this context, it is also worth meditating upon Deut. 4:29 to 31. If you truly seek your Lord with all your heart and soul, you will find Him. When you are in tribulation and all the evils come upon you “ in the latter days”, if you turn to the Lord your God and are obedient to His voice, for the Lord your God is a merciful God, He will not fail you or forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

Third day and revival

If God has smitten you, you are now fast approaching the 3rd day, the day of your personal revival. “The third day” announces the point of time ending your convalescence and the point of time for your returning to God after repentance. It is time for God to revive you, the individual members of the body of Christ. It is on the third day that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.

It is God who will revive us (Hos.6: 2) On the third day, God will raise us up and we shall live in His sight. Upon our revival, we shall live for God and His people. Unless He revives us, we will not be profitable to Him for His work. We, the individual members of the body of Christ, need to be restored by God so that He sends a mighty revival upon our world. Through His revived Church only, God will shake this world. Unless we return to Him, we will not be revived. We cannot revive ourselves by our human efforts. We cannot heal ourselves of the wounds inflicted by God but we have to return to Him for healing.

Note carefully the message of the Holy Spirit conveyed to the Church of the Laodecians, which is applicable to you. Behold, the Lord is standing at your door and knocking it. You may be under some deception or may have some emotional feeling that Jesus is in your heart. Will you “examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your ourselves. Know ye not your ourselves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (II Cor.13: 5). If you claim that Jesus is in your heart or if you claim that you have been filled with His Spirit, where is the love of God “shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto you”? (Rom.5: 5). If you claim to have the Spirit of Christ in you as in Rom. 8:9, do you really have the mind of Christ in you – the mind which agonizes for the lost souls and for the poor and needy – the mind which is full of His love and humility (Phil.2: 4-5 & I Cor.2: 16)? Does your Spirit-filled life manifest the fruit of the Spirit?

Because of your constantly grieving the Spirit of grace by sins and by treading under foot the Son of God and profaning the Blood of His Covenant, the Spirit of grace might have left your heart and He is now no longer in your heart as His Spirit “shall not always strive with men” (Gen.6: 3). Remember that Jesus is so long suffering and merciful that He, the Holy One, whom you have rejected and denied by your unholy life, has not deserted you once and for all, but is still standing outside your heart and knocking at the door. Because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, God is going to spew you out of His mouth. Do not say that you are spiritually rich with an abundance of blessings and with rich spiritual experiences and have need of nothing. You may feel quite content in your spiritual life. However, you should know that you are spiritually wretched, miserable, and poor and blind and naked. That is why the Lord is rebuking and chastening you out of His great love and mercy. “Be, therefore, zealous and repent” immediately.

Knowing God

Let us now mediate on Hos.6: 3 in detail. “Yes, let us know – recognize, be acquainted with and understand Him; let us be zealous to know the Lord – to appreciate, give heed to and cherish Him” (Amplified Version). After our personal revival, a “knowing” takes place. Unless God revives us personally, we cannot know Him fully. You may have known Jesus as the Savior, the Baptizer of the Holy Ghost, the Miracle Worker or the Healer. But, do you know Him also as your Lord who lords your entire life; as your loving Father who chastens you out of His eternal love; as your Counselor who counsels you in every matter; as your faithful Friend who sticks to you under every adverse circumstance; as your Comforter, the God of all comfort who comforts you when you pass through the furnace of afflictions; as the Prince of Peace who gives you His peace even when you are in trial and tribulation; as the King of Kings who gives you victory over sin and over your enemies; finally as your Heavenly Bridegroom who is jealous for your whole-hearted devotion to, and your chastity for Him? When God revives you, you will get a fuller knowledge of God and all His traits.

Restoration

Lastly, let us meditate on the following portion of verse 3 (Amplified Version):

“His going forth is prepared and certain as the dawn and He will come to us as the (heavy) rain, as the latter rain that waters the earth.”

On the third day, His going forth is prepared and becomes certain as the dawn, and He will come to you as the heavy rain, filling you with His greater glory and power. The Lord “will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff” (Is.41: 15). All revived and restored members would unite with one another and would thus fuse together “in one body by the cross”; they would be built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph. 2:16,21,22). The gates of hell will never prevail against this glorious Church.

In this regard, it is worth meditating on the intercessory prayer of Jesus to the Father for the restoration of the Church in glory and unity vide John 17:21-24. Jesus agonized in His prayer that all His disciples should be “one” as the Father is in Him and He in the Father and should also be “one” in Them so that on seeing their oneness, the world would believe that the Father has sent the Son into the world and has loved the Church as the Father has loved the Son. Jesus has given the glory received of the Father only to His Church, which stands united together in one Body and one Spirit. The members of this glorious Church would also be with Jesus WHERE HE IS and would behold His glory given by the Father.

The bridal Church is of the one body of Christ without any division, and is full of the glory given by the Father to the Son. The members of this glorious Church would be beholding the glory of Jesus as they worship and minister to God. It is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the Chief Corner Stone. It is through this rock-like Church, against which the gates of hell will never prevail, that God will send the latter rains upon the nations.

(T.Job Anbalagan)