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The Book of Hosea – Part 12, Hos 12 and 13

[Study Aired June 29, 2024]

The final three chapters of Hosea conclude a captivating narrative of Ephraim’s physical journey, mirroring the spiritual journey of the Bride of Christ throughout the entire Book of Hosea. Just as physical Israel broke their covenant with God, the Bride has also spiritually broken her covenant with her Husband, Christ. Yet, she has been on a parallel though spiritual journey, brimming with the hope of glory (Col 1:27) in Christ and a promise of enduring repentance, salvation, and a divine union with her Lord and King. This journey of spiritual growth in our time and order is a beacon of inspiration and hope for Ephraim and the Bride, a reminder that no matter how far we stray, the hope of glory driven by Christ within finalises with the spiritual man. 

In this study, we will only review Chapters 12 and 13. Next week, God willing, we will discuss the somewhat hidden conclusion of the saga, which points to salvation. Chapter 14 vaguely hints at salvation as Ephraim is continually charged for her sins until the last verse of Hosea indicates salvation.

The book of Hosea presents four distinct elementary stages of Israel’s growth, each with profound spiritual significance. These stages, which may be more than coincidental, are spiritually significant. It’s worth noting that the books of the Bible were not originally and individually divided into chapters and verses. 

• The first of the 4 identifiable elements, meaning ‘the whole tribulation’ (Number 4) for Israel and the subsequent Bride’s growth, is in the first 11 chapters of Hosea, with that number foreshadowing the temporary ‘ruin and disintegration of the perfection of the flesh’, the “perdition” of man (Rev 17:11).
• Israel and the Bride’s second element is in Chapter 12 (10 primary Babylonian tribes + 2 priestly tribes, Benjamin and Joseph), which identifies the twelve tribes of Israel as ‘foundational’ (number 12) for the beginning of the Bride’s future spiritual creation.
• The third component of the book presents Israel’s deliberately designed and disastrous’ physical progression’ in the works of her flesh. This is followed by the Bride’s ‘spiritual progression’ to come into Christ, her inheritance. The number 13 of chapter 13 signifies ‘rebellion’, which is precisely what the Bride initially mirrors with Israel in the ‘progressive’ early stages of her creation.
• The final chapter of Hosea, 14 partitioned as 10 and 4, portrays the ‘completeness’ (10) and ‘spiritual progression’ (4) of her creation, which, in like notability, continues in the remaining eleven books of the ‘Minor Prophets’, concluding in Malachi, the twelfth book to form the ‘foundation’ (12), the beginning of the creation of her continuing the ‘progression’ of her and the world onward to the Last Great Day, the Lake of Fire, and the salvation of all. 

Rev 3:14  And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

In the remaining three books, Hosea depicts the old Israel mirroring the Bride’s journey toward spiritual perfection. The sequence begins with the rejection of God’s Covenant in favour of physical wealth and sensual pleasures, as shown in Hosea 12. This leads to judgment in chapter 13 and offers a thrilling hope for repentance in chapter 14.

Exposé Significations:

Hosea 12:1-14

Hos 12:1  Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt.

What immediately springs to mind upon Ephraim feeding on the wind is Solomon’s dismal conclusions upon exhausting every possible sensual avenue for his pleasure. In speaking on the Lord’s behalf regarding man’s breathless search for wealth and pleasure, Solomon says,

Ecc 1:12  I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 
Ecc 1:13  And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.
Ecc 1:14  I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Our pursuit of sensualities is making a covenant with the sins of Egypt, which collectively represent Sodom, Old Jerusalem, and Babylon. The Bride refuses those temporary delicacies by refusing to be a son of Satan.

Heb 11:23  By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment. 
Heb 11:24  By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; 
Heb 11:25  Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; 
Heb 11:26  Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.

The following verses, indicative of all scripture, and particularly for the Book of Hosea, remind us of breaking our marriage covenant with Christ, our husband.

The Lord’s Indictment of Israel and Judah

Hos 12:2  The LORD hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his doings will he recompense him.

Today, the English translation of “recompense” includes compensation, indemnity, restitution, requital, and similar terms. However, for Jacob, representing Israel and the Bride, it has a twofold meaning: first, negatively, to “return; to turn back; apostatise,” and second, to plead with the Bride to repent and “again” (215 times) return to her Lord and, for us, spiritually able because of the holy spirit.

Act 1:8  But ye shall receive power, after that the holy ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth [primarily within!].

Hos 12:3  He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God: 
Hos 12:4  Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us; 
Hos 12:5  Even the LORD God of hosts; the LORD is his memorial. 
Hos 12:6  Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually. 
Hos 12:7  He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress. 

Indeed, those verses indict Jacob since he represents old Israel and all who profess Christ’s name in Babylon, the world today and present works “by his [their sweat and] strength” contest God. By the Lord’s design, Jacob pulled a tricky supplanting manoeuvre (To supplant, circumvent, take by the heel) on his brother Esau before he was born! (Gen 25:19-28) That is outwardly carried forward through the history of the West, in particular, and their lust for wealth and power.

Ephraim and Jacob outwardly today, and for the most part, represent current Zionism and are still ‘supplanting’ other nations with destructive wars by his authoritarian strength for insatiable wealth and lordship. With tears, the pseudo-spiritual Ephraim claims Christ’s name, and the Lord strove with him for a season when relative righteousness was evident, but now he is a merchant of deceit with his putrid name going before him throughout the world today because of his love of lies and oppression. Jacob, represented as Ephraim and Babylon, ‘loves to oppress’ with deception in catching his neighbour and brothers by their heels. The ten horns of and on the Beast of humanity is fast waking up to ‘whore’ Jacob’s treachery and is prophesied to destroy ‘her’ with fire (Rev 17). 

Jer 9:3  And they [Ephraim /Babylon] bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD. 
Jer 9:4  Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.
Jer 9:5  And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

Rev 17:16  And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

In the meantime, for our spiritual understanding, Jacob outwardly in the world rests in his decaying physical wealth, witless of his worse spiritual plight. It is only because of our Lord’s choosing that we see Jacob as our former selves, as all the seven churches of Asia, and poignantly as Laodiceans pre-empting our judgment.

1Co 11:28  But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 
1Co 11:29  For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
1Co 11:30  For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. 
1Co 11:31  For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. 
1Co 11:32  But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. 

Rev 3:14  And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; 
Rev 3:15  I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
Rev 3:16  So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 
Rev 3:18  I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 
Rev 3:19  As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 
Rev 3:20  Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 
Rev 3:21  To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. 
Rev 3:22  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the [Seven] churches.

Hos 12:8  And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance: in all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin. 

Everyone, past, present and future, will see Jacob’s filth having flowed out of Babylon yet will remain humiliated and mute since they, too, will see that they are the Beast, the man of perdition. Nonetheless, the world will likewise see the remnant of Jacob, representing the Lord’s “little flock” (Luke 12:32-34. Paradoxically and figuratively, 144,000, veiled, that nobody could number since the world doesn’t know who they are) who have and are today coming out of Babylon and “returning” to rebuild by Christ’s might, the walls of the New Heavenly Jerusalem within. Hence, ‘they will find no sin within her’. (See the link and nearby studies regarding the 144,000 here: Rev 7:9-17 The 144,000

Hos 12:9  And I that am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast.

That “solemn feast” day represents three holy convocations in the seventh month of Abib. The first represents the Feast of Trumpets (Lev 23:23-25) and its grand calling to assembly first for the Elect of God in their time and order, on each ‘feast’ occasion, and following is the world. The Day of Atonement (Lev 23:26-32) is the second holy convocation for the Elect of God to recognise that they, too, in Christ’s likeness, are in preparation today in readiness to save their brothers and sisters, heralding the third ‘feast day’, the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev 23:33-44) and the separate yet connected Last Great Day.

However, Jacob, like us, remains in these fleshy “booths” or “tabernacles” of corruptible flesh for the time being. The only difference is that Christ’s Bride is in the process of being created, hidden in Christ’s spirit and emulating Him.

Col 3:3  For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

1Pe 3:22  Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 
1Co 15:23  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
1Co 15:24  Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 
1Co 15:25  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 
1Co 15:26  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 

Hos 12:10  I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets. 
Hos 12:11  Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields. 
Hos 12:12  And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep. 

Just as Jacob served twice his hire (2×7 years) to Laban for his wife, Rachel, Israel likewise first served in the wilderness and spiritually for the Bride, witnessing twice the completion of the process (in the number 7). Today, she is figuratively preparing to keep Jacob’s sheep of the world as her second figurative 7-year hire for reward.

Hos 12:13  And by a prophet the LORD brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved. 
Hos 12:14  Ephraim provoked him [Christ] to anger most bitterly: therefore shall he leave his blood upon him, and his reproach shall his Lord return unto him. 

Of course, Christ is the only sacrifice whose blood profoundly qualifies scorn upon the corruptible flesh of man that assuredly will not return to Christ void, first by his Elect’s death to the flesh and the pleasures of Egypt and Babylon, and secondarily the world’s.

This concludes Jacob mirrored by the Bride and the first of three predictable events by her whorish stubbornness in maintaining her own righteousness.

Now, in Hosea chapter 13, we will study the broad second of the sequence of events.

Hosea 13:1-16

The Lord’s Relentless Judgment on Israel

Interestingly, at the beginning of this study, the number 13 represents “rebellion” that unerringly brings judgment upon Israel and, today, the Bride. Our Lord parallels rebellion with witchcraft, which is the practice of sorcery in twisting Christ’s commands to make them more palatable to the flesh.

1Sa 15:23  For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou [Saul, representing us] hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

Exo 22:18  Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. 

Of course, upon the opening verse of Hosea 13, Israel in the flesh is condemned to death, and for the Bride, it represents the death of all sins spiritually.

Hos 13:1  When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 
1Co 15:23  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.

When we first come to Christ, we are filled with passion to follow His every word and act righteously, diligently. This enthusiasm is symbolised by Israel’s ‘trembling’ at His word. However, when our Lord does not always immediately punish sin, we, like Israel, are emboldened to relax and subliminally think that Christ has overlooked the sin. Exalted, we go on to “sin more and more” and forget our Lord’s commands. Yet, in God’s timing, judgment is ‘relentless’ (Heb 12:23, Rev 19:11).

Hos 13:2  And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen [witchcraft]: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.

The act of kissing anyone denotes accord with that person, and in Israel’s and our case, the belief in our own righteousness, the idol of our hearts. Dying to Christ’s commands is life, but following the crowds of Babylon and her multitudes of idol worship is dung. Just as chaff blows away in the wind, and dung returns to the dust of the earth, so, too, does our self-righteousnesses.

Php 3:8  Yea doubtless, and I count all things [doctrines, and pet idols for sensual gain] but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 
Php 3:9  And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
Php 3:10  That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
Php 3:11  If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

Hos 13:3  Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.
Hos 13:4  Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.
Hos 13:5  I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.

Typified by Israel when times are tough, we, decreasingly depicted as ‘the Great Whore’, cry out to God to deliver us from our drought of spiritual understanding. Subsequently, it is wise for us, while it is yet “today” that we seek our Lord with all our heart and mind. In speaking of our former whoreish ways,

Rev 18:8  Therefore shall her [The Great Whore; Babylon the Great] plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. 
Rev 18:9  And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
Rev 18:10  Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. 

Heb 3:13  But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 
Heb 3:14  For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
Heb 3:15  While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. 

Hos 13:6  According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me.
Hos 13:7  Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them: [The Lord doesn’t immediately always chastise us, but stalks us like a lion or leopard]
Hos 13:8  I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul [Chest cavity ripped open] of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.
Hos 13:9  O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.
Hos 13:10  I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes?

Verses 6-9 represent all people, regardless of their ethnicity, when they are living prosperous lives free from physical and financial suffering. We eagerly anticipate enjoying the fruits of our labour, forgetting that we are created by the Lord for the destruction of the flesh and that our judgment and salvation in His time and order are guaranteed. Our Lord, lying hidden ‘by the way’, observes and controls all of our thoughts and actions from His spirit realm. Endlessly typified by Israel satiating herself luxuriously before chastisement, we, too, as chastised children, look to our parents, the Father and Christ, for ‘help’ in comfort and righteous living. 

Psa 84:11  For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. 

Verse 10 reminds us of Peter’s solemn reflection when he and the other disciples anxiously mulled the drinking of their Lord’s symbolised blood and eating his body, he says in verse 68 of John 6, beginning in verse 66…

Joh 6:66  From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. 
Joh 6:67  Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? 
Joh 6:68  Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. 
Joh 6:69  And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.

Isa 46:9  Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, 
Isa 46:10  Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: 
Isa 46:11  Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it. 

Hos 13:11  I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.

Of course, no more distinguished “King” is there who was taken away in purposeful “wrath” at the cross than Christ, yet He does come again to His chosen “little flock” whose ‘hidden sins’ are gloriously exposed for her eyes alone to see spiritually in the New Covenant. Meantime, old Israel is alive and well depicted as Babylon and the world dances in their strong delusions that their sins are forgiven without chastisement and acknowledgement since Christ allegedly paid for them on the cross. Hence…

Hos 13:12  The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid.

…nonetheless, judgment will come swiftly in the Resurrection to Judgment, the Lake of Fire, as it comes upon a labouring woman.

Hos 13:13  The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.
Hos 13:14  I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.

The Lord is the plagues upon Ephraim in the flesh; he only sees the outward plagues; however, those same plagues spiritually to the New Man in Christ he sees most brightly through signification. The entire Bible is hidden in profoundly deep parables and significations, particularly in the books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelations, and are given only for the Bride’s accelerating understanding in these latter days.

Rev 1:1  The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified [Meaning: 1. to give a sign, to signify, indicate. 2. to make known] it by his angel [Christ to his Christs, the Lord’s Elect] unto his servant John: 
Rev 1:2  Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
Rev 1:3  Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. 

The terms “signify, signified, signifying” are not easily equated with the more broad application and use of the term “manifest,” yet they mostly have the same meaning for the Bride’s profound understanding. Following are some examples:

Ecc 3:18  I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

Since Ephraim represents the Bride of Christ, nothing will be “hidden” from her understanding.

Luk 8:17  For [The Bride alone…] nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. 

Rom 16:25  Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, 
Rom 16:26  But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations [Within, and to the world in its own time and order] for the obedience of faith: 

Rev 15:4  Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? [Only the Bride] for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come [In their time and order] and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.

Hos 13:15  Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.
Hos 13:16  Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.

Joh 3:8  The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 

Jer 51:1 Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will raise up against Babylon [in this case, Ephraim leading us into Babylon], and against them that dwell in the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind;

Eph 4:14  so that we no longer may be infants, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the dishonesty of men, in cunning craftiness, to the wiles of deceit.

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words [Christ is the Word] that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Since the wind represents the personage of either Satan’s or God’s spirit, the first to come from the east is Satan’s spirit driven by God to dry up Ephraim’s wealth stored in the “great house”, her people represented as physical vessels. Her juvenile self-styled doctrines are depicted as pregnant women, Babylon’s harlot churches being prophetically dashed to pieces. The conclusion of all matters and coming from behind in Christ, the spirit of God in the Father. Positively, His spirit also comes from the dawning east to blow spiritual growth upon the equivalent ‘little house’ (“Little Flock – Luke 12:32-34), of God’s heavenly vessels, His Elect.

2Ti 2:20  But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. 

2Co 4:7  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
2Co 4:18  While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Hosea 13:15-16 broadly, yet subtly depicts the progression of any sin and is represented in 1 John 2:15-17 and our “love for the world”, and results in our judgment hopefully of and by ourselves before our Lord Himself needs to step in and outwardly judge us for our more humiliating inward spiritual judgment. 

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 
1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 
1Jn 2:17  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

The most insidious sin in the progression to the greater sin is pride, which begins with the fleshy mind dwelling upon what the eyes unavoidably transmit. Upon not hearing the Lord’s paradoxical, still small voice of his trumpet blast to ‘resist the Devil’s’ amplified lust, we “excuse” (Rom 2:15) ourselves of the sin as classically did Adam and Eve, and our consciences make us “hide”. Therein the hiding lies the malignant act of “pride” since hiding denotes our fear of having the nakedness of our pride exposed in not acknowledging the sin and, worse, not driving out the giants of our land. The result is malignant pride.

Num 32:23  But if ye will not do so [drive out the giants ~ pride] behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.

Jas 4:7  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 

As the ordinary Christian partially sees and the Bride dynamically performs, the most potent and only form of ‘resisting’ we can attribute to Satan is the act of immediately asking Christ for his strength and him casting out the Devil. 

Ephraim, as does the incipient Bride and dolefully mused by Solomon, loves the sensualities of the world. That love of chasing the flesh is, as Solomon says, ‘labouring for the wind’ (Ecc 5:16) and he knows since he was the master of not denying himself of every conceivable earthy delight.

Ecc 2:10  [Solomon says] And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. 
Ecc 2:11  Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. 

Consummation

Every study a teacher hosts, and by Christ’s hands, he ambitiously builds the Temple that the Bride distinctly IS. Each time, at Christ’s bidding, “when he pleases,” in his chamber, we eagerly respond to receive his kisses of poetically “signified” love.

Rev 1:1  The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants [The Bride alone] things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: 

Son 1:4  Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee. 

Son 1:2  Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. 

God forbid we exhibit any whorish resistance common to our former selves to not eagerly and with patience “run the race” (Heb 12:1-3) by classically resenting our Husband’s impassioned and fiery advances. That is precisely what Ephraim portrayed as Gomer did to her husband, Hosea, in chapters one to 11. Chapters 12 and 13, just studied, are Ephraim’s husband’s response to her haughty (Isa 3:16) dismissal of his love, rebounding on her with relentless indictments and judgment (A major theme of scripture and Hosea).

Unwittingly, Ephraim, without the holy spirit and by design, had zero chance of consistently submitting to her Husband’s love. Without the holy spirit, ‘bed-chamber’ passion is flighty and tedious, as is mostly experienced by and individually by both husbands and wives in every carnal marriage, yet identified primarily as a female condition.

Next week, always Lord willing, we will review the last Chapter of Hosea and our Lord’s equally “relentless” love for the ‘World’, and particularly His Bride with His Hosea-like plea to Gomer for us to ravishingly engage Him for what He all along wished His beautiful ‘young wife’ would equally delight in His very essence, His Word (Gen 1:3, Psa 119:5, Mat 5:14-16, Psa 119:30, Eph 5:8, Luk 17:24, Mat 28:3).