Days of Punishment Have Come

Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Hosea 9:5-9 KJV 

5 What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD? 6 For, lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant [places] for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns [shall be] in their tabernacles. 7 The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know [it]: the prophet [is] a fool, the spiritual man [is] mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred. 8 The watchman of Ephraim [was] with my God: [but] the prophet [is] a snare of a fowler in all his ways, [and] hatred in the house of his God. 9 They have deeply corrupted [themselves], as in the days of Gibeah: [therefore] he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins.

OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
1) After telling His people, through Hosea, that He would no longer allow them to worship Him, what did the Lord ask them? (v.5)
2) What did the Lord plan for His people and for their land? (v.6)
3) What was to come (note: "visitation" means judgment or punishment) and why? (v.7-9)

APPLICATION QUESTIONS
4) Have you, your church, or this nation ignored the Lord's prophets? If so, why?

LIFE LESSONS
5) The Lord does not punish His people without first warning them through His prophets.
6) The Lord's prophets are often ostracized and/or belittled by God's people.
7) Prophets are God's spokesmen in this earth to warn God's people of impending judgment for unconfessed sins.