Metaphysical Bible Interpretation of Hosea Chapter 7
Metaphysically Interpreting Hosea 7:1-10
7:1When I would heal Israel,
then is the iniquity of Ephraim uncovered,
and the wickedness of Samaria;
for they commit falsehood,
and the thief entereth in,
and the troop of robbers ravageth without.
7:2And they consider not in their hearts
that I remember all their wickedness:
now have their own doings beset them about;
they are before my face.
7:3They make the king glad with their wickedness,
and the princes with their lies.
7:4They are all adulterers;
they are as an oven heated by the baker;
he ceaseth to stir the fire,
from the kneading of the dough, until it be leavened.
7:5On the day of our king the princes
made themselves sick with the heat of wine;
he stretched out his hand with scoffers.
7:6For they have made ready their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait:
their baker sleepeth all the night;
in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.
7:7They are all hot as an oven,
and devour their judges;
all their kings are fallen:
there is none among them that calleth unto me.7:8Ephraim, he mixeth himself among the peoples;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
7:9Strangers have devoured his strength,
and he knoweth it not:
yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him,
and he knoweth it not.
7:10And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face:
yet they have not returned unto Jehovah their God,
nor sought him, for all this.
Metaphysically Interpreting Hosea 7:11-16
7:11And Ephraim is like a silly dove,
without understanding:
they call unto Egypt, they go to Assyria.
7:12When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them;
I will bring them down as the birds of the heavens;
I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard.
7:13Woe unto them! for they have wandered from me;
destruction unto them! for they have trespassed against me:
though I would redeem them,
yet they have spoken lies against me.7:14And they have not cried unto me with their heart,
but they howl upon their beds:
they assemble themselves for grain and new wine;
they rebel against me.
7:15Though I have taught and strengthened their arms,
yet do they devise mischief against me.
7:16They return, but not to him that is on high;
they are like a deceitful bow;
their princes shall fall by the sword
for the rage of their tongue:
this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.
November 10, 1912: Hosea 7:1-16
The subject of temperance cannot be comprehended in the mere abstinence from strong drink. This is the usual meaning and use of the term temperance, however, and nearly all those who make this reform their specialty, confine their efforts to methods that will remove the temptation, and control the appetite. These methods are usually the exercise of will and the recourse to external laws.
Intemperance has a cause lying deeper than appetite; the soul is yearning for something, and this outer craving but indicates the inward lack. So long as there is dearth of soul satisfaction, the craving will continue. All reforms that do not go into this subjective side of the question are temporary. Many a man has been healed by mentally saying to him, “Your soul is satisfied with the love of God.”
The soul that has no knowledge of the inner sources of life is like one who has great treasures in vaults he has forgotten. When his mind is freshened by one who is familiar with the true law, he begins to look for his supply, and finds it. Then he is living according to the law of his being, and the vague craving that led to outer sources of satisfaction, is done away with.
The intemperance of appetite in many of its phases is healed through this simple recognition of the law. Intemperate eating is accompanied by a craving for stimulants. Excessive meat eating and heavy drinking go hand-in-hand. But the word of the Spirit opens the thought to the living substance at the very heart of the soul, and man forever loses that gross desire, built up by trying to get satisfaction from matter and material things.
A strong desire in the consciousness for a fuller realization of life leads most people to stimulants. The remedy is to substitute the real stimulant for the false. So long as man wants, he will seek the satisfaction of that want in one way or another. If whisky is taken away from the drunkard, and nothing given him in its place, he will continue to crave it. If he be given a substitute, he will transfer his desire to that, for instance, morphine or cocaine. But if he be given the real life element, which is the “more abundant life” mentioned by Jesus, he will find his desire in possession of its own, and both he and his friends will see that it was not evil but satisfaction he was seeking.
The first step, then, in healing the drunkard in ourselves or another is to withdraw all condemnation and censure, and affirm the law of love. There is a very close connection between Love and Life. When we love, and pour out that subtle essence of the soul which stirs the heart-center till it glows like a furnace, we are moving to action the life energies of Being, and a great law of mind equilibrium is fulfilled. “He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.”
A man once testified that he healed himself of drunkenness by saying, whenever the desire for liquor came on him, “I do not love whisky, I love God.” Here was a practical application of the law of love to the healing of desire. The sense-man is constantly reaching out for the more abundant things of existence. The Spirit within is constantly saying, “Let the children of Israel go forward.” We drink the bitter waters and are bitten by the serpents of sense, whenever we try to satisfy through the flesh this inner craving. Soul desire is satisfied only with the higher things. Our desires are from God and must be fulfilled in Godlike ways. This sense-man must be “lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.”
The minds of those whose bodies are saturated with the lust for tea, coffee, tobacco and liquor, are in darkness. They are asleep in sense thought, which is a state of coma. Those who are in the light can help them to dissipate this darkness by casting off the “works of darkness.” Deny for them that they are mentally bound to the various thoughts that make up the drunkard's world. Say with the conviction of authority, “Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.”
“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.” These lusts of the flesh are many and they help one another. For instance, it is found by actual experiment that abstaining from meat lessens the appetite for liquors. It is said that there never was a vegetarian drunkard. Meat sets up a fever in the stomach that calls for something to cool it and we drink more than the system needs. There are tea and coffee dipsomaniacs, and their need of healing is fully as great as the whisky drunkards. The word of spiritual satisfaction will also heal these.
– UNITY magazine.
Transcribed by Lloyd Kinder on 01-05-2014
