Compassion You Can Trust in the Day of Judgment

How often do we forget what God has done for us? Think of this: what is the Bible but a collection of God's acts among His people from times past and a guarantee of God's acts on behalf of His people in times to come?

Thus, Hosea outlines that Israel's forgetfulness led to their idolatry and shame. 

Hosea 11:1–2 (ESV) When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. 2 The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.

God called Israel out of Egypt. God made a way for them to respond by delivering them through His mighty power. The call and the deliverance work together. What a picture of salvation! Who enables the response to His call but the One who calls! How can anyone respond to the Lord's Word without the Lord making the way for them to do so?

The problem with Israel is that the deliverance did not lead to lasting obedience. The more they called, the more they drifted, forgetting to inform their children of the mighty deeds of the Lord. 

The book of Judges recounts this:
Judges 2:10–12 (ESV) And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel. 11 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. 12 And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger.

So God sends Hosea to remind them:

Hosea 11:3–4 (ESV) Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. 4 I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.

And though God will punish them with exile into Assyria as Hosea stipulates in this chapter, He will relent and have compassion, for He is a God who both confirms His promise to Abraham and is committed to the long-term care of His people. 

Hosea 11:8–9 (ESV) How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. 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.

The God who punishes is also the God who loves and cares for His people. Those same mercies they experienced in Egypt, they will experience in Assyria. 

Incredibly, through the hard rebukes, the piercing light of God's tender care shines through. 

Hosea 11:10–11 (ESV) They shall go after the LORD; he will roar like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; 11 they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD.

You come to understand why, when David was asked which punishment to choose, whether famine, attack from his enemies, or pestilence from the Lord, he quickly decided the Lord because he knew of his inalterable compassion. 

2 Samuel 24:14-15 (ESV) Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.” 15 So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men.

We will be punished by something: sin, the world, or the Lord. If we are His, the confirmation of His compassion in Israel is proof that the pain He causes is our best and most productive option.