Hosea 5:15
I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early. I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.
Hosea's word belongs to his warnings of Israel's coming captivity and his appeal for the people to repent, joined with promises of blessing from God when they do. It means that God withdraws and returns to his place until the people acknowledge their offense and seek his face. The affliction is permitted by God as a consequence of transgression, not as part of his original purpose and not because he desires to cause unnecessary pain.
God delays the full consequences of sin while love and mercy can still turn the sinner back, but when those resources are exhausted he permits the law of sowing and reaping to operate as a final means of warning and rescue. Affliction is so permitted as a corrective means to make people recognize their error and return to God when patient warnings and forbearance have not turned them from wrongdoing. In their affliction the people will seek God early and earnestly, since adversity turns them to seek him whereas prosperity does not. The word applies to those professing faith in the last message, with the Lord waiting to see whether they will live out their faith and calling them to seek him in the way he has appointed.