Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has wounded, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before His Face. So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD (יְהוָ֔ה אֶת). His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and the early rain watering the earth. Hosea 6:1-3.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Today is the celebration of the day I raised Jesus from the dead. The firstborn among many brethren. “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death.” 1 Corinthians 15:19-26.
And this all has to do with My purpose. My eternal purpose in creation at the very beginning of all you see and have and are. So let us begin our journey of the eternal purpose with what I revealed to My prophet Hosea. For as I have told you and you should know, I make all things work together for good for those who love Me and are called according to My purpose (to that which I have set forth). Romans 8:28.
I told Hosea the prophecy of the resurrection, but in the way of what it does for you. “Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has wounded, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before His Face. So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD (יְהוָ֔ה אֶת). His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and the early rain watering the earth. Hosea 6:1-3.
There is so much for you to see here. First, it begins, “Come.” Jesus told Andrew and John to come and see. And when they came, they knew He was the Messiah. And then Andrew invited Peter and others to come and see too. Jesus invited the men you now know as the twelve disciples to come and follow Him. I tell you that when you draw close to Me, I draw close to you. I draw you to Me with human cords and bands of love in Jesus. And He told you “Come to Me all who are weary and find life burdensome and I will refresh you.”
And in the Word I gave Hosea, your coming to Me has to do with repentance and restoration (it is the Hebrew word “shuv,” which means return, repent, and restore), returning to Me whom you have left. You were all like sheep gone astray but I laid upon Him the guilt of you all so that you can come home to Me, blameless and holy with all your sins gone. “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.” 1 Peter 2:24-25. Note there that by His wounds you were healed. And this is from the prophecy I gave to My prophet Isaiah: “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging (bloody wounds) we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5.
Now look at the prophecy of Hosea: “For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has wounded, but He will bandage us.” You will notice something here that some translators have changed and added the word “us” after “torn” and after “wounded” but it is not so in the Hebrew in which it was written. I tore Him, Jesus, but I healed you, and I wounded Him but I bandaged you. The Hebrew word translated “bandaged” is the same word I use when I say that Jesus came to “heal” the broken-hearted, in other words, to bind, mend, and make whole that which was wounded and broken. The word translated as “wounded” in Hosea’s prophecy also means “to smite.” I struck Him for your sins and healed you. “Surely our diseases He Himself bore, and our pains He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being (shalom) fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on (אֶת) Him.” Isaiah 53:4-6.
Jesus did this for you. He did not have to take all that on Himself, and it caused Him untold anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane to become sin for you though He had never sinned and sin was loathsome to Him, for He is love and light as I am. We are One. I was in Him reconciling the world to Me so you could return to My house and dwell as One with Me again forever. And that is My eternal purpose.
But first let us go back to the prophecy of Hosea. For it will show you all this in just a few lines.
“He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before His Face.” And remember that the days for the Hebrew people start at sundown of the day before, so the second day begins at the sunset of the first day, and the third day begins at the sunset of the second day. Jesus became sin for you and once He had done so He became subject to the law of sin and death, that is, that the wages of sin is death. It was sealed at that point that He had to take your death sentence and go down to the dust of death. And He did. But after two days life was working again in Him and in you, no matter when you would live or had lived physically, I knew you and called you to My eternal purpose before you were formed in your mother’s womb, from the foundation of the world. Jesus explained to the Pharisees, “for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Matthew 12:40. In the heart of the earth is fiery hell and Jesus went down to the depths and tasted death for all of you. But suddenly, I spoke from My throne in Heaven into the lowest depths of Hell, “You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Your possession.” Psalm 2:7-8. And out of the depths of Hades, I raised My Son as the first born-again man, a new creation, fully God and fully man, never to be separated again. “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” Revelation 1:17-18. The devil was defeated on his own territory. The prophecy in the Garden of Eden was fulfilled. He had bruised the heel of the woman’s seed (the humanity of Jesus) but Jesus had crushed the devil’s head (authority). “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” Hebrews 2:14-15.
My Son overcame the world, the flesh, and the devil for you as one like you. He was in the world but not of the world. He was of Heaven and so are you now that you are in Him. When He died to sin once for all, you died to sin in Him, and when I raised Him from the dead I raised you in Him and seated you in Him at My right hand in Heaven. “For in Jesus all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.” Colossians 2:9-15.
Now, consider the next line of the prophecy of Hosea: “He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before His Face.” Do you see? You died with Him and I raised you with Him to live with Him in My presence. I have let My Face shine on you in Him. “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:3-11.
But there is more here. I speak the end from the beginning and there are many seasons and times My Words cover all at once. This passage not only speaks of His first coming, death and resurrection where He gave new birth to your spirit, but of His latter coming for the redemption of your bodies. When Jesus died, I raised Him early, before dawn of the third day, which was the first day of the week. But just as He foretold the details of His death and resurrection to His disciples, He also foretold His return. “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” Matthew 24:30. But He did not tell them the day or the hour that would be, but He told them of the signs to look for to know He was near, even at the door.
The first believers after Jesus returned to Heaven thought that His second coming would be very soon, but Peter told them differently. “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:8-9. Waiting for those who will come to repent, to return, to be restored—shuv. But hidden in Hosea’s prophecy, I give you indication of when the second coming will be, I call it the latter rain and I say “He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before His Face.” A day here is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. And remember that the days for the Hebrew people start at sundown of the day before, so the second day begins at the sunset of the first day, and the third day begins at the sunset of the second day. After two thousand years, at towards the end of the second day, since My Son’s death and resurrection there will be a revival, an awakening, a coming alive, in the world, to My Son, and My Words will be sought after and revealed to many (that is the next part of the Hosea prophecy which we will look at next), there will be healings, signs, and wonders, there will be many who are dead in their sins and trespasses who will be born again to new life. And on the third day, that is the year that is three thousand years since His death and resurrection, there will be the catching up of those who believe, the church, and you will meet My Son in the air at the trumpet blast, in a twinkling of an eye, to be clothed in immortality, glory and splendor and shine in My Kingdom forever. And then there will be intense years of retribution on the earth. As My apostle Peter stated, “But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” 2 Peter 3:7. “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Be careful how you live and be sure that you have received Jesus as Lord so you are caught up with the believers for “There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.” Luke 17:35-36.
And now let us consider the last two lines of the prophecy I gave to Hosea: “So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD (יְהוָ֔ה אֶת). His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and the early rain watering the earth.” There are many layers here and much to see. First, you see that knowing Me is not automatic in this world, it takes pressing in and pursuing truth. Jesus told you that eternal life is knowing Me, the one true God, and the One I sent, Jesus Christ. John 17:3. Seek Me while I can be found, call to Me while I am still near. Whoever calls on My Name and the Name of My Son will be saved, will escape the judgment on the earth. And this is the language of the New Covenant where all will know Me from the least to the greatest. How? By My Word made flesh and by the Holy Spirit in you and on you. “A Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” declares the LORD. “As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your seed, nor from the mouth of your seed’s seed,” says the LORD, “from now and forever.” Isaiah 59:20-21.
For in My Son, I made a New Covenant, whereby all who are in Christ will be in that Covenant with and through Him as His body, and I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for all will know Me, from the least to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” Hebrews 8:10-12.
My apostle Paul told you that he had one pressing desire that made all the things the world had to offer look like rubbish in comparison. And what was that? To know Jesus. Philippians 3:10. And when you know Him, you know Me, for in seeing and knowing Him, you see and know Me. He is My Word to you.
How can you know Me? I am eternal and I fill the universe in all is part. I have created and know all things. I made all the stars, number them, and call them by name and man has no number big enough or no instrument that reaches far enough to come even close to that. But I tell you that all from the least to the greatest can know Me. You know Me through Jesus for through Him you have access by the Holy Spirit to Me. This is in accordance with My eternal purpose which I carried out in Christ Jesus your Lord, in whom you have boldness and confident access through faith in Him right into My very throne room. Ephesians 3:11-12; Hebrews 4:16. Jesus reconciled God and man by joining the two together in one seamless life. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; “for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:17-22.
I am going to show you more from My Word in a moment, but let Me pause here and tell you My eternal purpose for I have called you into My own Kingdom and glory. 1 Thessalonians 2:12. My purpose has always been the same as I told Moses, to dwell among you and be your God and you to be My people, a people of that are My own special treasure who hear My voice, walk with Me in My ways of love and truth, and have continual uninterrupted fellowship with Me as we do wonderful works together. One family in My likeness and image, where I, as the head of the household, provide for all your needs and wipe all tears from your eyes and remove all sickness, sorrow, lack, grief, mourning, and death from your midst. A house of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit where all are of one mind and one heart. I want you close to Me in complete union of heart, soul, mind, and strength. One love in all, with all, through all, and sustaining all in perfect completeness and divine health. A forever family that rules and reigns with Me in this life and the next by receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness through Christ Jesus. As I told Moses, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My special treasure among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’” Exodus 19:3-6. And what did I ask Moses to do just a short time later? “Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them.” Exodus 25:8. And I never changed My purpose, read Revelation 21: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” Revelation 21:1-4. And Jesus came to tabernacle among you in a way you never expected I would. As one of you and yet still God. In Jesus I fit the humanity into the divine and the divine into the humanity. That is My eternal purpose.
And My apostle Peter repeats the purpose, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 1 Peter 2:9-10.
My eternal purpose is for your shalom and not evil, to give you a future and hope with Me. One with Me. A temple of My Spirit. My dwelling place with you and your dwelling place with Me. “You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:5.
And no matter how much man rejects Me from Adam until now, I do not give up. I continue to draw you to Myself, into oneness with Me. “Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings: “How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools hate knowledge? Turn to my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.” Proverbs 1:20-23.
Now let us consider the very last line of the Hosea prophecy and conclude for today, though there is still much to explore here. “His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and the early rain watering the earth.” Remember when this was first spoken Jesus had not come into the world as yet, so His first coming and second coming were both as certain as the dawn. You do not worry each morning whether the sun will rise. It always does, I have set it up that way for this age. And the Sun of Righteousness dawned with healing in His rays (hands, wings, garment corners) when Jesus came into the darkness of the sin and curse infested world as the LIGHT of the world and as the LORD your healer and your righteousness, and a whole new age of grace dawned. But He will come again, and you see that in this passage for it speaks of the early and the latter rain that will water the earth. My Word comes down like rain upon the dry earth, breaking up the hard clods and causing it to bear fruit, to bud and to bloom. A period of refreshing. “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.” Acts 3:19-21.
And I gave the Word to My prophet Joel as well. “So rejoice, O sons of Zion, and be glad in the LORD your God; for He has given you the early rain for your vindication. And He has poured down for you the rain, the early and latter rain as before. The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil. Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army which I sent among you. Joel 2:23-25. And there is more, “It will come about after this, that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, blood, fire and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be delivered.” Joel 2:28-32. And that is how you will know Me, I pour My Spirit out on all mankind from the least to the greatest.
And I think here I have given you enough to chew on for the rest of the day. But there is always more. My Word is forever.
I love you. And do you see from all this that you already have the victory? You are not trying to achieve it, Jesus overcame death, the grave, and the devil. You now have only to enforce it. And that will be the new series of Life Lessons I will start with you, “Enforcing the Victory.” Are you ready?
For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come. 1 Thessalonians 1:8-10.