{"id":3926,"date":"2009-01-01T19:54:01","date_gmt":"2009-01-02T00:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/ch-spurgeon\/hosea-1212-2"},"modified":"2009-01-01T19:54:01","modified_gmt":"2009-01-02T00:54:01","slug":"hosea-1212-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/2009\/01\/01\/hosea-1212-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hosea 12:12"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

“Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep.” 
              — Hosea 12:12 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Jacob, while expostulating with Laban, thus describes his own toil,
“This twenty years have I been with thee. That which was torn of beasts
I brought not unto thee: I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou
require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. Thus I was; in
the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep
departed from mine eyes.” Even more toilsome than this was the life of
our Saviour here below. He watched over all his sheep till he gave in
as his last account, “Of all those whom thou hast given me I have lost
none.” His hair was wet with dew, and his locks with the drops of the
night. Sleep departed from his eyes, for all night he was in prayer
wrestling for his people. One night Peter must be pleaded for; anon,
another claims his tearful intercession. No shepherd sitting beneath
the cold skies, looking up to the stars, could ever utter such
complaints because of the hardness of his toil as Jesus Christ might
have brought, if he had chosen to do so, because of the sternness of
his service in order to procure his spouse- <\/p>\n

\n

“Cold mountains and the midnight air,
Witnessed the fervour of his prayer;
The desert his temptations knew,
His conflict and his victory too.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is sweet to dwell upon the spiritual parallel of Laban having
required all the sheep at Jacob’s hand. If they were torn of beasts,
Jacob must make it good; if any of them died, he must stand as surety<\/strong><\/u>
for the whole. Was not the toil of Jesus for his Church the toil of one
who was under suretiship obligations to bring every believing one safe
to the hand of him who had committed them to his charge? Look upon
toiling Jacob, and you see a representation of him of whom we read, “He
shall feed his flock like a shepherd.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep.”                — Hosea 12:12 Jacob, while expostulating with Laban, thus describes his own toil,“This twenty years have I been with thee. That which was torn of beastsI brought not unto thee: I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thourequire it,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}