Law

2 Chronicle 14:12-15:3 – The Lord struck down the Cushites before Asa and Judah. The Cushites fled, and Asa and his army pursued them as far as Gerar. Such a great number of Cushites fell that they could not recover; they were crushed before the Lord and his forces. The men of Judah carried off a large amount of plunder. They destroyed all the villages around Gerar, for the terror of the Lord had fallen on them. They looted all these villages, since there was much plunder there. They also attacked the camps of the herders and carried off droves of sheep and goats and camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem. The Spirit of God came on Azariah son of Oded. He went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach and without the law.

Hosea 3:5 – Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

Lamentations 2:9 – Her gates have sunk into the ground; their bars he has broken and destroyed. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and her prophets no longer find visions from the Lord.

Amos 8:11 – “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

Application:

• ·         Return was a basic word in Hosea’s vocabulary. Israel’s repentance is envisioned—the reverse of her present stubborn rebellion.
• ·         There are no longer any priests to teach and interpret the covenant law.
• ·         In times of great distress Israel turned to the Lord for a prophetic word of hope or guidance, but in the coming judgment the Lord will answer all such appeals with silence—the awful silence of God.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV