Okay, let us pray. Father, as we dive into this new book that we have not previously studied, we pray you provide insight and even affection for you, great God, who loves sinful people. We pray in Christ's name, amen. Marriage is meant to be a picture of one of the glorious relationships that we could think of. It's supposed to be one of intimacy, of loyalty, of companionship, and of permanence. In its ideal form, marriage is a perfect example of the relationship of God to his people. Hosea is the first book where this language is applied to that relationship explicitly. In fact, in chapter two it says, and in that day declares the Lord, you will call me my husband, and no longer will you call me my Baal. Language of marriage, though, has been found throughout the Bible. It's just been in a very negative sense. I find it in the history of Israel when they're not called his bride, and yet the language of whoredom is used quite often. In Deuteronomy chapter 34, thinking back to our study of the Pentateuch, he warns them, hey, when you enter into the land, there's gonna be inhabitants there, and you're gonna be tempted to whore after their gods, whore. Leviticus gives the past history of Israel by saying they used to whore after goat demons, That whoring, that spiritual adultery, that promiscuousness, that infidelity leads one to believe that the relationship between God and His people is that of a marriage. It comes in in Deuteronomy. We looked at it in the last chapter. Chapters there when God's foreseeing the history of Israel or the future of Israel and what this might become. He says, behold, you are about to lie down with your father, speaking to Moses. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them. Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. Joshua you we see a little bit of faithfulness in there but into the judges the judges history Chapter 2 says this then the Lord raised up judges who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them Yet they did not listen to their judges for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. I Hortum is used of God's covenant people going after other gods. Idolatry specifically, but in Numbers it even says that they hoard after their own hearts, that is their own desires. They did what was right in their own eyes. So it's infidelity that comes to a head in the prophetic literature. Where we find ourselves in Hosea, God has had enough with the people of Israel. To understand the historical context there a little bit, you have to know that 200 years before Hosea's written, there was a break within the people of Israel so that the northern kingdom followed after Jeroboam, and this is after Solomon, and the southern kingdom went with Rehoboam, and there was a split. Things got really bad in the North when Jeroboam set up two golden calves and the people whored after them. There was a time of prosperity but then the country started to wane and issues started happening and Hosea then is called by God to speak into this situation and say, you know what, this isn't about kind of, you guys aren't politically savvy, this is about you forsaking your marriage covenant to the Lord, you have whored. And so Hosea is a powerful book that should cause us to awaken to the reality of infidelity, unfaithfulness to the God who has been so gracious and merciful. So we're gonna look at this message of Hosea, which the message of the book could be God faithfully pursues an unfaithful people, but it really culminates here or showcases itself in chapter one, which is then cycled throughout the book. So we're gonna see four notes in the melody of Hosea that we'll see reduplicated throughout. An authoritative revelation, an astounding requirement, an analogous relationship, and an astonishing restoration. So let's look first. The first note, an authoritative revelation. Verse 1. This section here, verses 1 and 2, provides three pieces of important information. First, it is a word of the Lord. The word came to Hosea. This isn't his own imagination. This isn't his own fancy. He's kind of just coming. This is God carrying him along by the Holy Spirit and then speaking through him. Look at verse two, when the Lord spoke through Hosea. So what we're going to see here is authoritative revelation of God. And it fits perfectly with all the scriptures together because we know that there is no errors in the word. Like all the other prophets, Hosea is going to call God's people to covenant faithfulness. He's going to bring accusations, conviction, threats of punishment, and then promises of restoration. Though this was written to people in 750 BC, it is just as applicable to us as the Apostle Paul says very clearly. These things were written down for our instruction. They serve as an example to us and they are profitable for teaching. reproof. And then the Lord Jesus Christ in Luke 24 says very clearly, starting with the law of Moses and the prophets, he showed them all the things in the scriptures concerning himself. And then he summarizes the whole of the Old Testament in this way. He says, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer on the third day, rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. He summarizes the whole Old Testament as this theme, that Christ should suffer, raise, repentance, be preached to all the nations. So we're gonna see that come out very clearly. Hosea is one stitch in the thread of God's tapestry of drawing a people to himself, incorporating Jews and Gentiles together in the church. Well, second, we learn who Hosea is here. It is the word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri. We actually know very little about Hosea other than the fact that his ministry was probably 30 years based upon the events in this book that we will talk about. We also get the dates of the book. Here it says the word of the Lord Came to Hosea the son of Biri in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. Strangely, we have all these kings talked about in the area of Judea, Judean kings, but only one. Jeroboam II, the king of Israel, this is just a hint that God's people are going to be centered in Judea, and based on the Davidic covenant, God works in Judah. This comes out more as we go. All of these kings failed in some respects, all paving the way for a messianic expectation of a Davidic king who would faithfully lead and guide God's people. Now next note of the melody, astounding requirement. Look at verse two. When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord. This term hortum can refer to fornication, prostitution, or other illicit sexual activity. So the text doesn't necessarily call her a prostitute, we see some imagery of this later, but the word is used of Tamar in the book of Genesis. No matter what, it seems to imply a promiscuous type of behavior. And because that seems so odd that God would tell Hosea to do this, some have just kind of explained this away and been like, you know what? Everybody was unfaithful or could be described as whoring after of the gods in the northern kingdom of Israel at that time. So anybody who marries is going to fit this description. And so they kind of explain it away that way. I was surprised by that. However, Some say that she will become promiscuous, so he's gonna marry a woman who will be unfaithful, and this fits in, supposedly, with the history of Israel. They started off good, but then they turned away. But the text doesn't say that. It is a woman who is currently in whoredom and will have children of whoredom. And this fits with the overall shape of the book as well as the history of Israel. So this astounding requirement gets explained as an analogous relationship, point number three. This is a prophetic sign act designed to give greater rhetorical force to Hosea's message by giving the audience a surprising visual object lesson. In Hosea's own marriage and family, he will be able to at all times say, I married her and I'm acting like this because this is how you have treated God for what he's done to you. This is very similar to other prophets' seemingly strange behavior that God calls them to do. It is a sign act. Isaiah was called to go naked and barefoot for three years in Isaiah 20. Jeremiah, he was commissioned to avoid funerals and forsake marriage. Ezekiel's responsibility was to avoid tears when his beloved wife dies. All of that was meant to communicate something. They were socially strange behaviors that the prophets could say, the Lord calls me to do this as a picture of what you are. God calls Israel originally, redeems them out of bondage in Egypt. It says very clearly in other scriptures that they had been worshiping false gods just among the Egyptians. He pulls them out, and because there wasn't an actual change in their hearts, their circumcision, they actually continued to be unfaithful to him to the point where Hosea is addressing it in such a manner. So, Gomer, a promiscuous woman, would bring shame upon Hosea immediately, and that shame on her culture, based on how things functioned there. And then she, without change, could possibly be unfaithful again in the future, which is a picture of Israel. Not only is the marriage a picture, but the meaning of the children's names, are going to be named here, symbolize the outcomes of this apostasy. Look at the first child in verse four. And the Lord said to him, call his name Jezreel, which is the name of a valley and a city in the northern kingdom. For 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 in the valley of Jezreel. Now, if you're familiar with the prophet Elisha, the first kings, he had instructed Jehu to kill to kill the house of King Ahab for his great evil in killing God's prophets. That was a bloodbath if you go back to it. It is horrendous. I remember preaching on that on Sunday night. Apparently though, Jehu's violence was so bad that he then punished him. And so this becomes a bloody episode in Israel's history that is marked off by this place called Jezreel. The firstborn son is called that. because this is what will happen to Israel. He will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. He will bring an end to the kingdom and defeat them in battle. The second child, Hosea 1, 6 through 7, 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. This second child, it's not named that she came from the marriage union. It's possible. This is a child of Hortum in that sense, but we're not sure. It could be Hosea's child. But no matter what, he has the task of naming the child and her name is No Mercy. No Mercy. Can you believe that? This is so heavy because of who God has revealed himself to be. If you remember Exodus 34, he is a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. He will no longer show mercy to Israel. However, the southern kingdom of Judah We have God's election and grace being shown here. Verse seven, 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 horsemen. This is a clear allusion to the prophecy or a prophecy of what would happen when the Assyrian army comes up against Judah. After they had already destroyed the northern kingdom, They come up against Judah and Isaiah tells Hezekiah to pray to the Lord. Hezekiah prays and 185,000 Assyrians are destroyed in one night. God saved them, not by bow or by sword or by war or horses or horsemen. It was a divine act of sovereign grace. Now the third child, Hosea 1, 8 through 9, 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. Israel had broken the covenant. This is the covenant principle or the phrase or the formula. I will be your God and you will be my people. That goes from the beginning and seen in Exodus chapter 6 all the way to the end in Revelation 22. I will dwell with you. I will be your God. You will be my people. This is the opposite. They're cut off. This is by virtue of the covenant that they were under, a Mosaic covenant, a conditional covenant whereby They were to obey God's commandments and he would bless them, including life in the land, blessings and prosperity. We covered the curses though. They would be exiled if they disobeyed God and turned from him. And that's exactly what happened here. Assyria would come up against them and bring them out of the land. So Hosea 6-7 states very plainly, like Adam, they transgressed the covenant. There they dealt faithlessly with me. So like Adam, this second Adam type of figure is exiled from the land. That's not the final note though. Here we turn forth to an astonishing restoration. This is interesting because out of nowhere we have a complete reversal of the name of these children and the promised punishments and curses. Verse 10, yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. Did we not just read in Genesis 22 the promise God gave to Abraham? that they would be a children like the sand of the sea. This will be fulfilled. There will be a restored relationship, it says. 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. What? A restored relationship back again, the formula of the covenant. A new covenant, you might say. There'll be a new unity also. Just as Israel and Judah was distinguished just be prior, look what it says in verse five, after the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David, sorry, verse 11, and the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together. An ingathering of the people into one and there would be a new Davidic king. They shall appoint for themselves one head or ruler or king Chapter 3, verse 5, is what I read just a second ago. After the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. In the latter days, there will be the people gathered together, united under a new king, Davidic king. And there'll be a new exodus, verse 11, and they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. They shall go up from the land. This is the same language used of the exodus out of Egypt. They went up from the land, symbolizing bondage, slavery. Again, a new exodus is promised, which we see come out in Isaiah, specifically through Cyrus. Thus, these words of restoration overrides God's promise, discipline and punishment with blessing, forgiveness, restoration and joy to the extent where he says it will happen in Jezreel, which mean God so. So to one kind of culminates, say to your brothers, you are my people and your sisters, you have received mercy. That's going to be it. That's where the people will be. They will be happy in God's presence and under his covenant love. And you find similar themes in the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, a time where God's people would be restored, where the separation would be broken down, there'd be gathering, there'd be a new heart given, a new covenant, the spirit would be given. All this is tied up together in this prophetic message of a time in the latter days. Well, when did this happen? At a certain level, the promises of restoration were partially fulfilled when you know that the people were brought back after exile. After exile of 70 years, God worked through Cyrus and then through Ezra and Nehemiah bringing the people back into the land. But none of that that's spoken of fits with the prophetic picture of this glorious restoration of a new temple and of the Spirit and forgiveness and a new covenant. All of that actually comes to fruition in the New Testament with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul specifically quotes this passage in Romans 9 to show that the promises of Hosea are fulfilled in the church of Jews and Gentiles together. So let's read from Romans 9 verse 21 through 26. Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory? Even us whom He has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles, as indeed He says in Ahosea. Those who are not my people, I will call my people. And her who is not beloved, I will call beloved. And in the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God. All the promises of God find their fulfillment in Christ. and then the church being wrapped into him. How might we become sons of the living God? That language is very familiar to us if we've read the Gospel of Matthew. Because when Jesus comes, he says to his disciples, who do you think I am? And Peter says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Earlier in the book, Matthew, quoting from Hosea, says, out of Egypt I called my son. How might people who are far off Gentiles and unfaithful Jews be brought into the people of God and be called sons of the living God? It's by being united to the true son by nature. the Son, Jesus Christ, who in his grace came to become a man so that he might live underneath the law to redeem those who are under the law, and that he might then take the curse of the law that we are rightfully due on himself by being hung on a tree. And then he rose from the dead. And Paul would say, by quoting Hosea in chapter 13, I believe, that death has lost its sting. Oh, death, where is your victory? Because Christ's resurrection is defeated, sin, death and Satan bringing about a new exodus. You see this? All of this imagery in Hosea finds its fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we await a further consummation of that in at his return when he ushers us into the promised land, the new heavens and the new earth. There will be no temple. God will be with us and we will be with him forever. So this language of Israel being applied to Gentiles and Jews is found throughout the Bible, but specifically in 1 Peter 2. He says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of the darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. And then he goes on to say, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable. So we, being the true Israel as the church, Jew and Gentile together, now are no longer Gentiles in the sense of the nations or the people who are unbelievers. Jesus taught this as well. He said, I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice, so there will be one flock and one shepherd. So what we have here, beloved, is a promise that those who trust in Christ become sons of the living God, are in a restored relationship. And then I want to back that up to what Hosea's imagery is depicting again, a marriage relationship. So if we have a restored relationship with God, then we, too, are in the covenant marriage relationship with God. And we find that very explicitly stated with Christ. John the Baptist spoke of one who was coming after him. And when he came, he said, the one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. The bridegroom is here. Paul. refers to the church as the bride of Christ. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the word with the word. that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and blameless. And then he quotes from Genesis, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is the classic marriage text. And yet then he says, the mystery is profound. I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. We, a sinful people, are united to a perfectly spotless bridegroom, and he bequeaths to us all his riches, his blessings, all his work becomes ours so that by legal right we are justified because of his righteousness. This theme comes to its fruition in Revelation 21, verse two. I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. A holy and happy marriage in a new Eden. All the promises of God find their yes in Christ. Until then, though, how should we live? We should live as a faithful wife, and that might sound strange to you. But this is how Paul speaks to the Corinthians. Listen to this in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 2 through 3. I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. We are to be the bride of Christ and live faithfully. He has given us His Spirit so that we might not be led astray by false teaching, or by sinful passions, or by inappropriate relationships, or by apathy, or any sort of straying from pure devotion to Christ. May we not be, as Israel of old, committing idolatry, not necessarily bowing down to idols, but giving ourselves to our own hearts' desires, whoring after them the scriptures call them. First John 2.15 states it, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world. We are to be faithful to our loving husband who by his grace has taken us to be his. To those of you who might not yet be a Christian, Maybe today you're feeling especially stained, blemished, depraved, sinful. What about the savior who comes and takes an unfaithful bride? You need to realize that you're never outside. the bounds of his love, where he can take you to be with him. He calls all to repent and believe and to become children of the living God. That is by being united to Christ by faith, you receive justification, sanctification, redemption, and our boast is in the Lord. Today, turn to him. Find all your heart's joy and satisfaction in Christ, who will never leave us, Nor forsake us. Why settle for idolatry, the mere trifles of this world that are fading and passing away? Turn to Christ, our great bridegroom. So Hosea is one book in the storyline of the Bible that conveys very explicitly a rich picture of what Israel's relationship with God was, but should ultimately become. But it's one book of the whole grand story of the Bible from Genesis to revelation of God taking a sinful people to himself, pursuing them, taking them, caring for them and keeping them forever. May he get the praise. Let's pray. Our father, we're thankful that in your grace you have sovereignly called us out of darkness into the light of your beloved son instead of Being strangers and aliens to the covenants, you have brought us into the promise of Christ, who was born according to the flesh, a son of David, but by nature, a son from all eternity, so that he might be the propitiation for our sins. Lord, we're thankful that in your grace you would love us who deserve nothing but your judgment. For those who might be convicted today that they're not matching up or living out what you call us to be as holy, may they find in Christ the one who loves the unlovely and turn from wickedness so they might enjoy the blessings of walking in the light. We pray for those who might not know you That today would be the day you draw them to yourself, opening their eyes to the truth of their wickedness, that they might find in Christ the pearl of greatest price. We pray all this in Jesus' name.