Hosea 6:3 Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come to us as the rain… There must be no sitting down by the wayside, no loitering, no laziness in all the school of the Church. "We shall know if we follow on to know." If we practise the little we do know, we shall get outlook of things that lie beyond, and confidence to deal with them. Love shall beget love; capacity shall enlarge itself into a still fuller capacity, and practice in prayer should, so to say, end in skill of supplication; we shall know the way to the throne and the seat of mercy, and come boldly to it as of right, not in ourselves, but invested in us by the grace of God. "Prepared as the morning"— is established as the morning. It is a great action of law, a great movement settled, regulated, determined from eternity. "He shall come unto us as the rain," not the occasional shower, not the intermittent baptism of soft water, but "as the latter and former rain unto the earth." Both must come, each in its own time, and in its own way. Thus we have law, and thus we have mercy. Here we have philosophy which earthly philosophy has not yet comprehended; condescension that leaves behind no amazement that it can stoop so low as to touch the fartherest away. It is in these mysteries we live; in these voices we hear the only music we care to listen to. (Joseph Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. |
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