I'd like to have you take your Bibles this evening and turn to the prophet Hosea, the Old Testament Hosea, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea. That's the way those books go. Hosea is one of the minor prophets as we call them because compared to Ezekiel and Isaiah and Daniel, their books are very short. And tonight I want to begin looking at this prophet Hosea. We'll have a few more sermons in the coming weeks, the Lord willing. Some of the contemporaries of Hosea were Amos and Isaiah. There were several prophets, important prophets during those days. Let's listen to God's word as it comes to us from the prophet Hosea. The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Berri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah kings of Judah and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel. When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, go take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord. So he married Gomer, daughter of Biblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. And the Lord said to Hosea, call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel. And I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. And that day I will break Israel's bow in the valley of Jezreel. And Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, call her Lo-Ruhamah. For I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. Yet I will show love to the house of Judah, and I will save them, not by bow, sword, or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the Lord their God. And after she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. And then the Lord said, call him Lo-Ammi. For you are not my people, and I am not your God. Yet the Israelites will be like the sand of the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, they will be called sons of the living God. The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, and they will appoint one leader. and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brothers, My people, and to your sisters, My loved one." We're going to stop reading the Word of the Lord at that point. We don't know much about this man, Hosea. He is said to have been the son of Baeri, but that doesn't help us much. At least the scholars haven't been able to find out who that guy was, so that doesn't help us much. From the writing of this book, if you read it, it is rather obvious that he is a citizen of the ten tribes to the north. Not a citizen of Judah, but a citizen of Israel. We know when he prophesied because we learned that from verse 1. He prophesied at the time of those kings and one of those kings is Jeroboam, as you see, the king of Israel. That's Jeroboam II. Jeroboam I, of course, was the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin. But he prophesied then during the reign of Jeroboam, the son of Jehoash, king of Israel, that would put this prophecy at about 750 years before Christ. It's a long time ago, isn't it, boys and girls? Almost 3,000 years. And the word of God that was spoken then is still as important today. The time of Jeroboam II, the one that is listed here, was a time of great, great prosperity for Israel. This was probably one of their most prosperous times in terms of money, in terms of power. It almost reminded one of the time of Solomon. It was so great. They had all of the major trade routes going through their land. They were taking toll from those major trade routes. Their business was up. Optimism was great. But the problem in Israel, of course, was that their morality and their idolatry was also terrible. Morality was down and idolatry was up. And so it was a terrible time of spiritual depravity. And in that time, of course, Hosea then is called to preach to them. This isn't the first of their spiritual depravity. As you remember with Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, their first king after Israel split, he was the one that made idols at Dan and Bethel and taught them how to sin there. You think about the deprivation, the spiritual depravity that occurred during the time of Ahab and Jezebel. So terrible that Elijah thought he was the only one that was left. I alone am left, even though God had, of course, kept 6,000 that had not bowed their knee to Baal. But the prophets of Baal and the priests of Baal dominated the spiritual landscape at that time. It was so wicked and so evil that, you remember, Jehu was sent to destroy the house of Ahab and Jezebel. And he did so thoroughly, if you read those passages that I suggested that you read, But even though Jehu wiped out the families of Ahab and Jezebel, even so, idolatry continued, and especially the idolatry of Baal, the worship of Baal. And so it was in that time then that God sent Hosea the prophet to Israel to remind them of God's goodness and to point them to their sin and to warn them that unless there was repentance, God would come in judgment. And Hosea was to do that in a very extraordinary way. He was to come to Israel both in deed and in word. He was called to marry a prostitute. That's what we see in verse 2b, go take yourself an adulterous wife. His marriage was to be a parable of Israel's spiritual prostitution. Israel had been unfaithful to God. Gomer would be unfaithful to Hosea Israel had been unfaithful to the God that showered her with blessings that protected her and provided her and gave her the land and and Chosen them from all the nations of the world to know the living God and to have his word and to know about eternal life And yet they abandoned him. They cheated on him and They were like a faithless wife sleeping out when God's head was turned. That is what Hosea would be telling them in his marriage, that he, a faithful husband, and how faithful he and how loving he would be, we will see when we get to chapter 3. But he, Hosea, represents the faithfulness and the love of God And Gomer, the faithless and lustful wife, of course, represents Israel's shameful response to God. And so in verse 3, we read that Hosea obeyed God and he married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. There's been a lot of speculation as to whether or not she was a prostitute before he married her and what kind of prostitute she might have been, whether that was in the Temple of Baal or whatever. And there's been a lot of debate on that. Some suggest perhaps that God called Hosea to marry her knowing that she would become a prostitute, and that's what this has in mind. Well, for me, there is good reason, I think, to believe that she was already that when he married her. Because after all, if Gomer, his wife, is to represent Israel, if she is a picture of Israel, then of course Israel was not a virgin when God saw her. Israel was not a faithful wife when God, a faithful prospect when God found her. Israel, like the rest of the nations, was covered with sin and with shame, lustful and faithless. Even Abraham was an idolater before God called him. And Jacob's wives were idolaters as well. But wonder of wonders, God calls Jacob, God calls Israel to be his wife, his bride, to love her and to serve her and to provide for her, for better or for worse. And that is what Hosea would do for Gomer. You would marry her in spite of her great sin, in spite of her faithlessness. And as we think about that, we must also bear in mind that that is true also of our relationship to God, is it not? I mean, it is easy to gloss over our sin. to think somehow that we are better than our neighbors. And to have the same attitude of the Pharisees, I thank thee, Lord, that I am not like other men. Now, we don't say that, of course. And every day we pray for the forgiveness of our sins and we confess our sins, but our sins are not quite like our neighbors, are they? I mean, our deeds are not quite as vile as the deeds of, let's say, the gay community. We are not like those who step out on their wife and sleep around, are we? We are not like those who shack up and those who have abortions, are we? And of course, we are not because we are worse than that. We are filled with spiritual pride because we think that we are not like the public of old. We are guilty of sins of arrogance and sins of pride and sins of hypocrisy. We pretend to be faithful and we talk about faithfulness, but whenever we get between a rock and a hard place, between being faithful to God or doing what is easy, we often compromise. We sleep in his bed, but our hearts often are far from him, lusting for that which is of the world. Is that not true? And like Israel, we have long ago lost our purity, but it is God who took us in, and it is God who cleansed us, and it is God who clothed us, and at great cost, the precious blood of his own Son. The beautiful true soul that we have as brides was not given to us by our earthly fathers, but was given to us by our husband, by Jesus Christ. Go take yourself an adulterous wife." And so he married Gomer. You wonder what gossip must have gone around when that happened. I mean, can you imagine what would happen today if a minister you knew had a wife like that? I mean, you might think, for example, that, I mean, you would surely ask the question, does he know what's going on? Is he so blind? Is he so stupid that he doesn't realize what's happening? When everybody is talking about, doesn't he realize it? And then what if not one, but two of his children would be born of another man? Wouldn't you say, when is he going to wise up? When is he going to get, when is he going to be a man and throw the whore out? Isn't that what you would say? Isn't that exactly what they must have said and thought about Hosea? It doesn't really matter whether or not she was or wasn't a prostitute when he married her. The fact is that she became unfaithful and adulterous after he married her. and he marries her, yet she sleeps around, and perhaps we can understand why he would put up with one child born from another man, but that he would put up with two. We'd say, Hosea, why don't you get with it, man, and throw her out. And of course, that's precisely what this parable of Hosea's life is meant to convey. Israel had been unfaithful to God, to the God that had called her, to the God that had nurtured her, to the God that had provided this very land she is living in, the God that had protected her. Israel had become unfaithful to that God. She had abandoned Him, cheated on Him, like a faithful wife betraying both her husband and her children. That message that Hosea must bring. The message that just as Hosea is hurt and Hosea is humiliated and Hosea is torn in two by the lovelessness of his wife, so Israel tears God's heart apart. One almost wonders how the Scriptures dares to describe God in that way. I wonder whether you or I ever think about our sin like that. Not that we have broken God's law, but that we break his heart, because that's the picture that we have here. I say, who but God would dare to say that? Who but God would dare to talk like that? We can understand if God comes in this passage, in this prophecy, and he describes himself as angry and coming in judgment. That we understand. But that the God whose throne is the heavens and whose footstool is the earth, that that God would speak about our sin breaking his heart, that not only amazes me, but that crushes me. And I hope it crushes you. Children, what hurts the most when you're naughty? When you make your mother angry and she spanks you? Or when you make her cry? It's when you make her cry, isn't it? It's that which really makes you feel bad. And that's the message that God conveys to Israel and to you and to me tonight. The message that we surely need more and more to convey also to our children and to those that we speak to about the love of God, that God is not a feelingless power somewhere, but He is one who grieves over the disobedience of His children. That is not to say, of course, that judgment and punishment is not part of God's message. That is here too, is it not? Verse 3b, and she conceived and bore him a son. In time, Gomer would bear three children for Hosea, and this one is probably the only one that is his own. This is the only time it says she bore him a son. In the other places it simply says she bore a daughter or she bore a son, but here it says she bore him a son. Verse 4, then the Lord said to Hosea, call him Jezreel because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. Difficult passage to understand. If you read those chapters in Kings and you realize that Jehu was under orders of God to do exactly what he did. Jehu was called to destroy all of Ahab and Jezebel's children. And God commended him for doing exactly what he did. For that violence that you read, you remember God commended him. Now, why is God going to punish for Jehu's violence, which God commends him for? And it is obvious, of course, that the Bible isn't contradictory, but that the Bible tells us something that we were not aware of before, that there was something about the way that Jehu did his work that God will condemn. That it wasn't what Jehu did, but it was how he did it. It was his motivation. He did it for himself, apparently. out of zeal for his own position rather than out of zeal for God. It is not always what we do, but it is how we do it, is it not? But then we wonder, why does Israel get punished for Jehu's sin? Because that's what God is speaking about here. We find that hard to understand too, except that once again, we must realize that somehow or other, Israel must be guilty along with Jehu, and how would they be guilty of that probably in following the same kind of life that Jehu lived, the same kind of violent life, perhaps condoning and not repenting for what Jehu did. And so Israel shares in Jehu's guilt because they did not repent for what Jehu did. And God has been very patient with them, waiting for generations for them to confess their sin, but they don't confess it, and so the sins of the fathers are visited to the children. There are things that the Bible tells us all the time. We don't think about that too much, certainly not in our individualistic society. Somehow or other, we think that our sins are just affecting us, but our sins always affect far more than the individual. Someone said you cannot sin alone. Our sins attach to others as well. We are connected to each other. We are connected to when I sin. It affects my wife. It affects my family. The church's sin affects me. It affects you. Denominations' sin affect us. When a church or a denomination slips from God's Word and denies God's Word or becomes unfaithful to God's Word, the members, if they do not do something about it, share in that guilt. We do the same thing in society. the violence that we experience in society, the abortion that we have in society, the filth. Somehow or other, we will also be accountable for that. That's what we realize when we read this. Sometimes it takes a long time for God's judgment to come, not that he has forgotten, but he waits for people to repent. As Peter said, not wishing that you should perish. Verse 6, Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. And the Lord said to Hosea, call her Lo-Ruhamah, not loved. That's what it means. For I will no longer show love to the house of Israel. I said it means not love. That's the way the New International Version translated. They said Derek Kinder, who wrote a very good commentary on the book of Hosea, much prefers the word not pitied. to not love, not pitied or having no compassion. And he identifies this word with a word in Isaiah 49, verse 15, where we read, can a woman forget her sucking child that she should have no compassion? It's that idea that is in this word. Call her lo, Ruhamah, no compassion. How terrible it would be if God would no longer have compassion. If God would no longer have pity. How could we live? How could we endure it? If God would not have pity, we depend on God's pity. We hope in God's mercy and in God's compassion. If there was no mercy with God, how could we stand before him? With him, there is forgiveness, always forgiveness. God says, no, not always. There will come a time when there will be no pity. You see, sleeping around, unfaithful, living, cannot go on forever. That's what Hosea is telling us as he told Israel. that there will come a time when, if we have been covenant breakers, we will be like Esau. We will seek the blessing with tears, but it will slip through our fingers. We will not. We will call to heaven, but heaven will be silent. And if that is not enough, if that warning is not enough, that God will no longer have pity, then now the other shoedraw Verse 8, after she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. And the Lord said, Call him Lo-Ami, for you are not my people, and I am not your God. What pain must fill Hosea's heart as he takes this third child into his home. Again, it is not his, lo, ami, not mine, not my people. What a terrible name for a child to have, if you think about it. You think about Hosea introducing his wife to someone in his family, to someone and saying, this is Gomer, my wife, and this is not my son. What a terrible thing to be called not my son, not my people. And that is how God comes to Israel. Israel has always prided herself in saying, the temple, the temple, the temple. We are the people of God. We are his chosen ones. God said, not my people. You can call yourself what you want, but don't call yourself my people anymore. That's how it is with Israel. And doesn't it send shivers up your spine? There are still people today, of course, that have forgotten what God said in all of this. Those who look at Israel today, the unbelieving Jew, and speak about them as God's people, God says, they are not my people, not my people, not my people. Could there be harsher words? I say, doesn't it send shivers up your spine when you think about that, because we also are in God's coveted family. We have been grafted into the vine. We are reminded in Romans chapter 9 or 11 that just as we were grafted in, we can be cut off. God calls us to faithful living. This is a parable, as you see, of spiritual prostitution. It is a story of warning regarding judgment, but it is also a plea for repentance, and we must not forget that. Why is it that God comes to Israel? Why doesn't he just cut them off? Why doesn't he just forget about it? Why doesn't he just close his ears and go his own way? Why does he send Hosea to Israel, to this wicked, idolatrous nation? that is sleeping around, that is whoring with other gods. Why does he do that? The same reason that he sends Jonah to Nineveh. Why does he send Jonah to Nineveh? Why does he confront Nineveh with their sin? Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed because they are spiritually ignorant. They don't know their right hand from their left hand. He calls them, he warns them of judgment so that they will repent and turn to him. Why does God send John the Baptist? The axe is laid at the root of the tree. Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Why does God do that? He does that to call them to repentance. Hosea, with his lustful wife, brings a message in word and deed to show Israel what they are and what they have done and to warn them what will happen so that they, in time, quickly Turn from their sin and turn to the living God, to remember that He is the only true God, the God that has lavished love upon them. That's why God comes to us today. That's why God stirs our conscience. It is not to condemn us. Well, it is to have us condemn ourselves, but God stirs our conscience, reminds us of judgment and hell and that which awaits those who thumb their nose at him in order that we might turn to him. The Holy Spirit is working in your heart those very things and you know it is not to ignore you, it is to bring you to repentance to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the day of salvation. Lord reminds us in all of this that we cannot continue indefinitely walking in our own willful disobedience because there will come a time when you will be called, not my people, that you will not be pitied and you can cry and call all you want, but it will be too late. That's the message that Hosea brings. Yet even in this horrible message, there are two indications again of God's mercy. There are two yets. You find them in verse 7 and verse 10. If you have your own Bible, you should probably just circle those so that they stand out a little bit. Verse 7, Yet I will show love to the house of Judah, Notice it's not Israel, but it is some of Israel, because those are the brothers and the sisters in the southern two tribes. I will show love to the house of Judah, and I will save them, not with bow, sword, or battle, but by horses and horsemen, or by horses and horsemen, but by the Lord their God. Did God do that? Well, He did that, of course, many times. Perhaps thinking, if you think about this first verse, you see the name Hezekiah. You remember, children, when Hezekiah, when Jerusalem was surrounded by Sennacherib and 100 and 200,000 people, 200,000 soldiers, and Sennacherib had arrogantly said his God was better than Hezekiah's God, and Hezekiah took that letter and he laid it before the Lord God and he says, this is the kind of boasting that that Gentile has upon his lips. And God said, don't worry about it, I'll take care of it. And God delivered him, delivered Hezekiah, delivered Jerusalem, and one night the angel of death came and 185,000 Assyrians lay dead the next morning. And God provided an even greater deliverance, did He not, in Judah when His own Son came to deliver, to deliver from sin and to bring the victory of the cross and the grave and the Holy Spirit. Yet, I will show love to the house of Judah Hosea is suggesting here, reminding those in the northern tribes that there is only hope when they repudiate that which surrounds them, that kind of wicked, idolatrous family, nation, friends that they have. And they have to withdraw from that wicked Israel, and they have to find their hope and find their worship in Judah, where God is still honored and where God will still save and where the Savior would be born. There is another yet in verse 10. Yet the Israelites will be like the sand of the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people. They will be called sons, not merely covenant people, but sons of the living God. The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited and they will appoint one leader. I wonder who that is, boys and girls. Do you think that could be Jesus? I think so. The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited and they will appoint one leader and will come out of the land. For great will be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brothers, my people, and to your sisters, my loved one, What an amazing promise, because all the threats that were made in the beginning are now reversed. Not my people become my people, even sons. And those who are not loved in the first verses now become loved. And the terrible day of judgment at Jezreel now somehow becomes a victorious day. And you begin to wonder, how does this all fit in? What does God say to us in this? First of all, it seems to me it means that God's promises do not fail. God had promised Abraham that his descendants would be like the sand of the sea and the stars of the sky. And God says, that promise will not be lost. I keep my promises. And there would be that people of God. They would be adopted into Abraham's family. They wouldn't be blood children anymore. They would be adopted because like Abraham, they also would believe and they would be called sons of Abraham. If you want to find the New Testament explanation of this, you go to Romans chapter 9 and at verse 26 and following, Let me start at verse 22 of Romans 9. What if God, choosing to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the objects of His wrath prepared for destruction? And what if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the objects of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance to glory, even us, whom He also called not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea, I will call them my people who are not my people, and I will call her my loved one who was not my loved one. And it will happen in the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, that they will be called sons of the living God. And Isaiah cries concerning Israel, though the number of the Israelites be like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved. The Lord God will carry out His sentence on the earth with speed and finality. God will have a family. He will have an Israel of God, and it will not be because of bloodlines, but it will be because of grace. It will be because they are united to the true Israel, Jesus Christ. So that's what it means when he speaks about the sons of Israel being greater than the sands of the sea. It also means, it reminds us that God's threats are very real, does it not? God did not threaten Israel in vain. It was not somehow or other that, well, they didn't repent and so God said, well, let's try plan B, but only a remnant are saved. It is as if the prophet describes it as if the prophet describes it this way, that the wolf comes in and all in the flock and all that's left is a piece of tail and a piece of ear. And that's what happened to Israel, the fleshly Israel. The threat of God was not in vain, nor, my friends, are God's threats in vain today, too. We think about the New Testament, you think about Revelation, you think about the seven churches in Asia Minor. Christ comes to them and warns them not to spot their wedding garments, and apparently they thought that they, too, were so secure that they could live as they wanted, and today you can go into Asia Minor and you will hardly find a Christian there. And finally, we think about God's great mercy. I think about Romans chapter 11. If some of the branches had been cut And you, though a wild olive shoot have been grafted in among others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do consider this, you do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in. Granted, but they were broken off because of unbelief. And you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid, for if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him turn to the Lord, for he will have mercy. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." May God grant that in your heart. Amen. Father, we thank you for the voice of the prophet and the life of the prophet that crushes us and reminds us again of your great love for your people. Heavenly Father, we would pray that we might not, like Israel of old, boast about the covenant, the covenant, the covenant, or Reformed theology or anything else. but that our boast might be in your grace and in the great love of Jesus that found us filthy and despised and brought us by grace through faith into fellowship with him, cleansing us purifying us with his precious blood. Lord God, may we respond to your love in faithful obedience. Hear our prayer, for Jesus' sake, amen.