The text for this morning comes from Hosea, an interesting book, as I will talk about, and an interesting story, but I think one that is very useful for us to be familiar with. So I will read for us from Hosea chapter 1, starting at verse 2, and then into chapter 2, verse 1, which contains this initial opening story or narrative about the prophet Hosea. Let me read for us. As always, Brothers and sisters, this is the very word of our living God. Hosea 1 verse 2. When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, go, take yourself, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom. For the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. And the Lord said to him, call his name Jezreel. For in a little while, in just a little while, I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel. And I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. And on that day, I will break the bow of Israel and the valley of Jezreel. She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, call her name No-mercy. For I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel to forgive them at all. but I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen." When she had weaned no mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said, call his name not my people, for you are not my people, and I am not your God. Yet, the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, it shall be said to them, children of the living God. And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head, and they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brothers, you are my people, and to your sisters, you have received mercy. So ends this reading from God's holy, infallible, and inerrant word. May he write it upon our hearts as we come before it this morning. Well, this morning, looking at a very interesting text, are we not? And Lord willing, for the next couple Sundays, we'll continue into Hosea 2 and occasionally take little peeks into chapter 3 of Hosea. The first two or three chapters of Hosea are, at least I find them to be, among the most dramatic passages of Scripture, among the most uncomfortable passages of Scripture, among the most perplexing, but also among the most beautiful chapters and all of God's holy word. All of these via a picture encapsulated in a word, a term that we don't use in polite society, do we? Whore, whoredom. I'm gonna use that word because scripture uses that word, but let me take a moment of explanation, at least for the kids, because I hope all you adults know what that word means, as uncomfortable as it is. I'll try to explain, and maybe mom and dad can help later. There are certain things that God allows us to do, encourages us to do, between a husband and a wife, and only between a husband and a wife. When the Bible uses the word whore, it's talking about a person, a man or a woman, who takes those things that should only be done between a husband and a wife and does them with other people for pay. It might be money, it might be clothes, it might be jewelry, it might be food, it might be a house, something they get in return for doing things that God only wants to happen between a married husband and wife. And God considers this a great evil, a great sin. Doing such things is sinful. And in most cultures and societies, in most of the world, for most of human history, doing these things is also considered to be a great scandal. Those who engage in them are scandalous people. It's a scandal because it's out in the open, it's seen, it's out in public, and that's considered very, very disgraceful and dishonoring. So what do we have here in Hosea? We've got a scandal, a great scandal in this story of Hosea, his wife, Gomer, and the three children named in the passage this morning. And this scandal, I'm gonna give away the ending now, or at least part of the ending on the way there, this scandal is a picture of the relationship between God and his people, his bride, Israel. Hosea pictures God, Gomer pictures Israel. And the way Israel has behaved, God is telling them through Hosea and through Gomer, the way they have behaved is a great public scandal. There is a deeper scandal, and that will point to us today in the church of Jesus Christ. We'll get to there later. So I want to go through the text, see how this scandal between Hosea and Gomer points to God and Israel, portraying both judgment and, you heard it at the end, promise to Israel. And then how this scandal, this judgment, this promise applies to us today as well. So let's go through the text. Again, the scandal in Hosea's family is a picture of the great spiritual scandal in Israel. The people of God, the family of God. Now in this particular passage, just a quick note, We're talking about a time after the nation was split, after King Solomon. His son was foolish. Ten tribes left, formed the nation of Israel in the north, and we had Judah in the south. Hosea's prophecy is particularly to this northern nation of Israel, and we'll talk about how it's so in a little bit. So we get to verses two and three, which begin with God calling his prophet to go and take a wife of Horeb. And he takes to himself, it says, Gomer, the daughter of Dibeleon. She conceives and bears him a son. Now these are real people. Hosea is a real prophet. You can see in verse one, if you look back, he's the son of Beeri. in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, son of Joash, the king of Israel. He's a real person. We know Gomer is a real person, in part because we're told who her father is. These are identifying marks that are meant to tell us that these are real people with real fathers, with a real history. Now, there's some debate about that among scholars and commentators. And there's some debate about Gomer's status before Hosea married her. I think the text points us fairly straightforwardly, fairly simply, to the idea that before they got married, Gomer was already an adulterous whore. Now that story, as it's presented, causes some people some problems, or at least questions. Why would God command a prophet, his very own prophet, to do such a shameful, scandalous thing? For example, in Leviticus 21, verse 7, the law very specifically prohibits any son of Aaron, any priest, from marrying a prostitute. And the reasoning of many of these commentators is if that's true for a priest, it must be true for a prophet as well, for marrying a prostitute. It's not clear that Gomer was a prostitute before the marriage. We know that she became one after. We can see that in the story, especially in chapters one and three, things that are described in the oracle in chapter two. But before, she's described by a more general term, a wife of whoredom, a promiscuous woman, they say. And so they look at that and go, well, God knew she was going to be promiscuous before it happened. On the other hand, in Deuteronomy 22, the very law of God requires that a promiscuous woman be stoned to death if it can be proven that she was unchaste before marriage. And so they say again, if Gomer was already a prostitute, already adulterating herself, wouldn't she be dead? Wouldn't she have been killed? In fact, wouldn't God's command to Hosea be to stone her rather than to marry her? as one commentator put it, have a funeral service instead of a wedding service. Well, they offer various solutions to this conundrum. One is that while this isn't a real historical marriage, it's just a parable or allegory that Hosea tells to get the nation of Israel's attention. Calvin, John Calvin, adopted a view similar to that. But again, I think the clarity of the text, its simplicity, how straightforward a manner in which it is told, It's not told like a parable. Plus, there are other times when prophets are asked to live out visible actions that teach a lesson. Look at Isaiah 8. Jeremiah does it many times. Among them, Jeremiah 13, Jeremiah 18, Jeremiah 19, Jeremiah 27, where he takes a yoke and wears it. These are visual images meant to tell a prophetic message to the people. So I think this is a real story about real people. And if that's true, then in order to avoid Hosea marrying someone that he shouldn't, a couple options are proposed. One is that the whoredom is not physical, but spiritual only. But again, to me, that just obscures the picture that is being presented. All women, all men, are spiritually unfaithful, are spiritual whores. So Gomer would be no special illustration. So why would she even be named? Another explanation is that Gomer was pure before the marriage, but became impure afterwards, and that God is telling Hosea something about the women he's about to marry. Marry this person, but be forewarned, things are going to happen. There are variations on this view, but they all boil down to the same result. This adulterous behavior, this whoredom, only comes after the marriage. Again, for me, the problem with this is that it blunts the impact of the picture and of the message that I believe God is sending through Hosea to the people of Israel, this prophetic image, this prophetic word. Israel was not pure before God chose them as his people and then became impure afterwards, right? They had problems like we all do. They were sinners like we all are. and it had just gotten worse. And then in the end, for me, Leviticus 21 applies to priests, not to prophets. Yes, prophets are important people in God's economy, but the application to Hosea may be inappropriate to begin with. So I go back to the idea that Gomer, when Hosea married her, was already an impure, sinful, adulterous woman. And that, my friends, really is scandalous. He's not a priest, but he is a prophet of God, and he holds a special status because of that. And that he, a prophet of God, should marry a whore is scandalous. And even though she is a whore, Gomer has not been put to death as the law requires. That also is scandalous, and a picture of Israel's unfaithfulness to God's word. Both are commentaries on the Lord God's relationship with Israel. They are a whoring, adulterous bride, and their failure to follow the law is obvious just in the very fact that Gomer is still alive. And we know from reading the rest of God's Word that this is an utterly debased, disgusting, sinful time in the history of the northern kingdom of Israel. And so we shouldn't blunt the prophetic message here just to make us a little bit more comfortable about what Hosea and Gomer are doing. God's trying to tell us something. And if we blunt it by saying that, well, that can't be for a prophet of God to do that, then I think we're in danger of missing what he is saying to us, what he's saying to Israel. What he's saying to Israel in chapter two is the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord. It's a scandal of outrageous proportions. And Hosea's marriage to Gomer is a powerful illustration of that. And so then, to add to this, we have three children born. There's another little issue that commentators haggle about that we can discuss before getting into each child, and that's whose children are these? Now it's pretty clear in verse 3, it says, Gomer conceived and bore him, Hosea, a son. But then in verses 6 and 8, it just says that she conceived and bore, not bore him. So why do verses 6 and 8 leave that out, that she bore him, Hosea, a daughter and a son? Were they not Hosea's children also? And some argue that they were not. that bore him is deliberately left out to give us a clue that these weren't Hosea's biological children, conceived illegitimately by other men. Others point out, look, in Hebrew narrative, we don't have to repeat things all the time. Hebrew storytelling does this all the time, leaves out details that carry over for something that happened previously. In other words, the text doesn't have to repeat, bore him every time a child is born, because it already said it once. The story moves quickly, it moves from child to child, so we don't need repetition. Moreover, Hosea is the one naming the children, which speaks to his fatherhood. They are his children. So what do we do? Which is it? Are they illegitimate kids? Are they Hosea's kids? You know what, the Bible doesn't give us a clear answer. And maybe that's on purpose. Maybe we're supposed to have a little bit of doubt. And if that's true, again, scandal. Whose children are these? Think how scandalous that would have been if true. Not only has the prophet married this woman, but now he's got two children and nobody knows who the father is. His wife is a scandal, his marriage is a scandal, and possibly his children are a scandal as well. What an incredible picture, and it's a disturbing picture. If you're feeling uncomfortable right now, you probably should be, because this is uncomfortable, and I think it's meant to be uncomfortable. So let's talk about the children and their names. God commands Hosea to give these children their names, and each of the names serves to point to a judgment on the northern kingdom of Israel. In verses four and five, we have a son named Jezreel. Why named Jezreel? To punish the house of Jehu. The current King Jeroboam, Jeroboam II, is a descendant of Jehu, and God is going to punish Jehu for the blood of Jezreel. He's going to end Jehu's dynasty, but also put an end to the nation of Israel itself. Now, Jehu was a man who had been commissioned by God to wipe out the family of Ahab and Jezebel. We don't have time to go into that horrid story, but God used Jehu to wipe out Ahab and Jezebel. And this happened, much of it happened in the town of Jezreel, which is one of the major cities of the northern kingdom. At the time Jehu was commissioned to do this, Ahab was already dead. Joram was reigning. He was in Jezreel, excuse me, recovering from wounds with Ahaziah, the king of Judah. They had partnered in combat, received wounds, and were recovering together. God commands Jehu to kill Joram, all the descendants of Ahab. Jezebel is also to be killed, and she does end up being killed in Jezreel. Jehu did this. but he went beyond God's command in two ways. First, he killed King Ahaziah of Judah and many of his family. He also killed friends of Joram, and he killed priests. God had promised Jehu that if you do this, your dynasty will last to the fourth generation. Well, it did, and then it ended. And Hosea is saying now is the time. Now it will be ended. Jeroboam, named in verse 1, only reigned for a few more years, his son Zechariah for about six months, and then he was murdered. And then, within 30 years of this, after a succession of kings in the northern kingdom, one king after another murdering the one before him, a coup to take over the throne, after 30 years of this mayhem, the Assyrians came, Israel was defeated, and the way the Assyrians treated their conquered enemies was to scatter them. intermarry them with different cultures, with different peoples. And what does Jezreel mean in Hebrew? Scattered. God says to Israel, I'm going to scatter you. And that is a terrible, terrible judgment in the name of this son. He's gonna break their bow, a metaphor for breaking their strength. And so we have judgment in the name of the first child. Then in verses 6 and 7, we get to a daughter. In the text, she is named No Mercy. I like that the ESV translates the names into English. Lo-ru-ha-ma doesn't mean anything to English speakers, but it would have been obvious to Hebrew speakers. No Mercy. She is named No Mercy. What does her name pretend? Well, it's clear. God says there will be no mercy for the house of Israel. He'd been patient for 200 years at this point with their continual sin, their continual sinful adultery, their continual chasing after the Baals, after false gods, after false idols. Not one king of the Northern Kingdom was evaluated as a good in the eyes of God. One bad ruler after another. God is done with the nation of Israel. And the Assyrians are coming as an instrument of that judgment. And there will be no mercy. And if you've heard or read about how the Assyrians conquered other peoples, there was no mercy. Some people believe they invented crucifixion. Others believe they invented sticking people on pikes and leaving them to die. These were cruel people without mercy. But there's also a promise embedded in there to the nation of Judah in the south. I will have mercy on them. I will save them, but I'm not gonna save them in any normal, traditional way that men might expect. It's not gonna be by the bow, it's not gonna be by the sword, it's not gonna be by war, by horses and their power, or by horsemen and their skill. But by me, says God, I will save. Judah will be saved by the Lord God himself. And as you read about the stories of the kings of Judah, we can see examples of this, how God preserved Hezekiah, who's named here in verse one, and others. Quickly thereafter, the daughter, no mercy, is just weaned, and now she has a son, and his name, not my people. In this name, the Lord pronounces a very severe judgment on Israel. You, he says to them, are no longer my people. I am no longer your God. It has echoes, pre-echoes of what Jesus says to some who come to him and say, I did all these things in your name. And he says, get away from me, I never knew you. It's this kind of thing that God is saying to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. I am no longer your God. The covenant commitment, the covenant relationship, I am your God and you are my people. It's broken. It's over. It's done. The breach is final. It's short, like the story. Short, brief, no muss, no fuss. Over. Scandalous. Despair. Terrible. And then we get to promises, verses 10 and 11, and chapter 2, verse 1. Israel may be scattered, but they will not be wiped out. In fact, while the covenant made through Moses may be broken, the covenant promise to Abraham still stands. Take a look, for example, at Galatians 3.17. Even so, the children of Israel are still going to be as numerous as the sands of the sea, which cannot be numbered or counted. So a reversal is coming, a restoration is coming. This wanton, whoring wife, take a peek if you want at chapter three, is going to be redeemed. Hosea is going to be told, go buy her back, make her yours again. We'll talk about this, Lord willing, in a couple weeks at the end of chapter two. Beautiful picture. Where it was said about them, you are not my people, it will be said to them, children of the living God. That's a better name than scattered, no mercy, and not my people. Children of the living God. The children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together and will have one head. They will go up from the land, an image of being strong and powerful again. Great will be the day of Jezreel. Now this might throw us for a little bit of a loop. How can scattered, how can Jezreel be great? Well, there's another connotation. There's another meaning to that word. Scattered or Jezreel in Hebrew can also be used for the idea of scattering seed, sowing it to be fruitful and grow and prosper. Now God uses the word in that sense. You will be scattered as seeds, sowed and planted. Restoration is coming. And so say this word to your brothers. You are my people. Say this word to your sisters. You have received mercy. There are little hints of this along the way in Hezekiah and Josiah, the kings of Judah, when they very boldly, not just invite, but command people in the northern kingdom to come to Jerusalem and worship God properly. Still, Judah has its own story of rebellion and sin, of judgment, of exile in Babylon. They will return to the land, we know this, but without a king. So they wait. They hope for the promise of Messiah, that one head to be fulfilled, to be one nation with one king, the son of David, as God has promised. So what does this mean for us today, this scandalous picture God gives to the nation of Israel? What's the tie-in? Well, in part, we live in times of fulfillment, don't we? Messiah has come. Jesus Christ was the son of David, the promised head and king for all of God's people. And while Paul in his epistles is not entirely sure of the future of all the Jews, his brothers, he does know that the promise of Hosea is fulfilled in the church. Gentiles as well as Jews receive a righteousness by faith, not by works. And to them it is said, to all of them it is said, you are sons of the living God. Gentiles' wild branches are grafted into that cultivated tree or vine of Israel, some of which were cut off and pruned. This is that judgment that God pronounced, part of the message that He gave through the prophets. There is a remnant, and it is a numerous remnant. And out of the two, out of Gentile and Jew, God makes one new nation, one new man, is the image in Ephesians 2, with one head, the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is true for all who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. But see, this is where the scandal comes in for us as well that we need to be aware of and why I think we need to preserve in the text, as uncomfortable as it is, the scandalous nature of Hosea and Gomer's marriage and the scandalous nature of what is going on in their lives. Romans 5.8 says this, a remarkable, incredible verse. Paul writes, God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Think about that for a minute. Brothers and sisters, that is a scandal. That's a scandal. God loved us while we were still sinners. Hosea was called to love Gomer while she was still an adulterous woman. There's a bigger picture than just the nation of Israel. This is a picture of salvation. This is a picture of God's love, as we will see as we go through these couple chapters. While we were still living our lives of whoredom, of spiritual adultery, chasing after other gods, other idols, other loves. Christ died for us. How in the world does a holy God have anything to do with sin? Read, for example, Psalm 5. If we look at God's holiness and understand God's holiness, he ought to punish every single human who has ever lived or will live. That would be holy, and that would be just. If God instead does something that we ought to see as quite scandalous, at least from a human perspective, the holy God loves sinners. Just like he called upon Hosea to marry a sinful woman instead of punishing her, which she deserved, so also the holy God joins himself, marries himself, as it were, to sinful men and women and children, instead of giving us the punishment we deserve. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, took that punishment on the cross in our place. And then think about that for a little bit, because that, my friends, also is a great scandal. that the Son of God should come and hang out with sinful human beings, but even worse than that, be nailed to a cross and killed. And yet, what mercy and what love? According to the law, Gomer deserved death. According to God's eternal judgment and justice, we also deserve the punishment of death. Gomer received mercy and is redeemed. If you read ahead, you can peek ahead to the end in chapter three. We also have received mercy and have been redeemed. Not when we were pure, because we never were anyway. Not when we deserved it, because we never did, but when we were still sinners, when we were still rebels, when we were still our own adulterous, whoring selves. God loved us and sent his son to die for us. The holy God took on human flesh, lived and had fellowship with sinners. Pharisees saw this as a scandal. And in a sense, they were right. But they didn't see the bigger picture. They didn't understand the greater promises because there's more. As we read earlier, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21, God made him who knew no sin to be sin, to be sin. Scandal. But he did it out of love. He did it in mercy. So that in him, all who repent and believe and turn in faith to Christ Jesus have Christ's righteousness. Can you see what a scandal that is? The holy God loving sinful, whoring, adulterous men and women and children like you and me. We can't be too judgmental of Gomer. Because without God saving mercy and grace and love, we're all like Gomer. It's no wonder that Jews reacted in horror to the message of the gospel. It's no wonder that Muslims cry scandal when they see and hear about Christianity. You mean God died? How can that be? It's no wonder that modern rational thinking people who are not believers see and hear the Christian story as some sort of bizarre set of events. and even scandalous. How could a loving father send his own son to death on a cross, and while he's there suffering, pour out all of his wrath and judgment on him? Is that what you Christians really believe? Yes. Yes, we do. Because it is a wonder. Because it is a scandal. But my friends, it is a glorious scandal. It is a beautiful scandal because it's a powerful demonstration of the reality of God's love and mercy in Christ Jesus for rebellious and adulterous men, women, and children. Because of it, you can say to each other, brothers, you are God's people. Sisters, you have received mercy. And if you have repented and believed, this is true for you and it cannot be taken away. And if you have not repented and believed, quit putzing around and do it now. Receive the mercy and the love of God in Christ Jesus. How can we respond except to praise God for His unspeakable gift, His measureless love, the riches of His mercy to us in Christ Jesus, His only Son, our Lord, our Savior, our Bridegroom, for we are His bride. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we do thank you. We are humbled that you would do such a thing for sinners such as we are. Not save us because we've earned it through our works, through our good deeds, even less by our good intentions. Not that we have paid for it by some sacrifice, by some act of contrition, by some gift. Simply because you give it freely. It is a gift from God and we are humbled and we are thankful. Create in us our own gratitude, our own love, our own appreciation. For this wonderful thing that you have done, as scandalous as it might seem to those around us, we see in it your grace, your mercy, and your love. May we come to know that more deeply. May we come to celebrate it more joyously. May we come to share it with others more freely. Father, again, we cannot do these things in our own strength, and so we ask that you would pour out your Holy Spirit Equip us, guide us, lead us, strengthen us to do those things that you have called us to do. We ask it in Christ's name, his precious name. Amen.