Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Hosea. If you're looking for that, it's right after Daniel, right before Joel. That may not help so much, but we're learning these, we're going to learn these, right? We're going to get the order down. As we said last week, these are often the unused pages of our Bibles, but they're important pages of our Bibles. We said last week, as we started this series on the books of the minor prophets, that oftentimes we think of prophecy as predictions of the future. And certainly that is in the prophets. We're going to see that this morning. But we also see men speaking God's word and applying God's word to the current context. And we're definitely going to see that in the passage that we have before us now. My work over at Indiana University is in cell biology. And so I'm used to sort of getting in and looking really, really closely. And that would be sort of like the Martyn Lloyd-Jones 200 sermons on the book of Ephesians kind of a thing. But that is not this series. This series is the telescope sort of flying over and getting one sermon per minor prophet. So I noted one guy I was listening to attempted to do this by jamming an hour and a half's worth of material into 45 minutes. That's not what I'm hoping to do. It's not supposed to be an exhaustive treatment of the book, but just to get a sort of a big idea. And really, my focus is going to be on how we see the Lord Jesus Christ in the minor prophets. So my encouragement to you is to read these books. And it would be helpful for you probably to read the books before we go through them. But Hosea is a little longer. Fourteen pages still would take you, you know, it take you about a half an hour to read it straight through if you did that. But try to read each one of these prophets at least once before. We get to it in the sermon, and I think it'll help you when we go to look at some particular parts. And I would encourage you to be a part of the Bible study. We're going to be starting up in another week. Let's listen now to God's Word. I'm going to read the first chapter of the book of Hosea. The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Beri, 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. When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, Go take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of the blame, and she conceived and bore him a son. Then the Lord said to him, Call his name Jezreel. For in a little while I will avenge bloodshed, the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. It shall come to pass in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him, call her name Loruchamah, for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, will save them by the Lord their God and will not save them by bow nor by sword or battle, by horses or horsemen. Now, when she had weaned, she conceived and bore a son. Then God said, call his name, for you are not my people and I will not be your God. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea. which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there it shall be said to them, you are sons of the living God. Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together and appoint for themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land. For great will be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brethren, my people, And to your sisters, mercy is shown. And there will end the reading of God's word. May he add his blessing to the word. Well, there was a time in our culture when TV shows that portrayed families did that in a fairly positive way. where you had wives and husbands who loved one another and seemed to be in a fairly stable relationship, where children, if there were children, respected their parents and tried to please their parents, although certainly weren't perfect. And so I think about the types of shows I watched when I was growing up. I didn't watch all of these shows, but the ones that were on anyway when I was growing up, things like The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie and even a show like Happy Days, right, where you have a basically stable family structure. And what a contrast it is to the types of shows that are on TV today that are popular that portray the family as an absolute disaster, where the parents are irresponsible and self-centered, where the kids are in open defiance, and oftentimes the kids are presented as the ones that have the brains in the family and the parents are just morons. And you think of things like the Simpsons and the Family Guy and Some of the other shows that are popular today, they portray the family in a very, very negative light. And so, what's really happening in our culture, of course, is the family has become more and more of a battleground and not the sort of rock that you built your society on that was the case several generations ago. Well, we turn to the Bible. And we expect to see the traditional family displayed for us, right? That's what we're looking for when we open our Bibles. Were you surprised when we opened Hosea, the very first of the book of the twelve? And remember, the twelve minor prophets were one book as presented in the Hebrew Bible. They were seen as a package deal. And so you open up this prophecy, which is going to span a 300 year period, and you're introduced to a family. And the wife is unfaithful and the children are the products of adultery in the family. And you have to say to yourself, what is going on? What is going on here? Did that get your attention? God is trying to get your attention. And he has something very profound to say in the book of Hosea and something very profound to say about the Lord Jesus Christ. And he uses the imagery of the family and particularly the wife and the husband relationship and the father-son relationship. And he uses those in this book of Hosea. to show us that Jesus Christ is the faithful husband. And Jesus Christ is the obedient Son. And He's the One who's come to save wayward wives and sons. Wayward people like you and like me. And as we look at this passage, I hope we'll see how Christ is portrayed in that way. And children, if you'd like to draw a picture this morning, draw a picture of Hosea. and his family. It's not good, but draw it if you can and listen, because we want to hear how this points us to Jesus Christ. The first thing I'd like you to notice, and you've got a pretty large insert in the bulletin this morning because I want to have you look at some things in it. But the first thing I want us to notice is that God's people are always tempted to turn away from him. And that was true in this day. It's true in our day as well. If you look at the first verse of Hosea, he gives us a time frame. This is helpful. Not all the prophets really give us information like this so that we can accurately date them. But Hosea says that he spoke in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Kings of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, the king of Israel. So if you turn on the back of your outline, you'll find a little bit of a of a timeline there. And on the left side, page 28, this is from the Tyndale Old Testament commentary on 1st and 2nd Kings, you'll see at the top of the page, on the left side, there are the kings of Judah and Israel. And when we start this little timeline, you see that the kingdom is united and David is listed as the king there. And so, a little background. God brings his people out of Egypt. He brings them through the wilderness and into the promised land. And then, for about 300 years, they're ruled by these judges, but then a king. And so that starts the monarchy. And when they begin, Israel is united under King David. And then David's son Solomon. You see, that's a period from about 1010 B.C. to 930 B.C. About 80 years. The golden age of the kingdom of Israel. And then what happens? Well, David's son is a moron, for lack of a better word. And he ends up offending the ten northern tribes. And so the ten northern tribes of Israel break away and form a separate nation that's called Israel. In the Bible, the southern kingdoms remain loyal to the descendants of David, and those are called Judah. And so now you have the divided kingdom and there's a separate king in Judah and a separate king in Israel. Now, as you look down toward the bottom of page 28, you see Jehu. Jehu, a king in Israel. Jehu was a bloody man who came to the throne and murdered all the relatives of Ahab, one of the previous kings. And he went far beyond what God told him to do. And so you saw in chapter one, it references King Jeroboam, the son of Jehu. He's a descendant of Jehu. And now as you turn over to page 29, the other page on the right side, The timeline over there, we see where we are in the book of Hosea. Hosea was at work when Jeroboam II was the king of Israel and where Uzziah was the king in Judah. Hosea actually mentions the three kings following Uzziah all the way up to Hezekiah. Doesn't mention all these kings under Jeroboam. We'll talk about probably why that's the case in a minute. But that puts Hosea right there during a period that could have been as long as 70 years. We don't know for sure, but if that's true, he would have been the longest ministering prophet in the Bible. Look at who some of his contemporaries were. Hosea was ministering around the time of Micah and Isaiah and Amos. Joel and Jonah are harder to date. We're not as sure about when they were, but Hosea certainly was ministering around the time of Micah and Isaiah and Amos. So that's the setting when he comes to minister. Now, what is the situation? Well, as you look at that timeline, one thing you notice is that the kings that were ruling then, Uzziah in Judah and Jeroboam in the north. Those are some of the longest reigns of any of the kings. In fact, Jeroboam's 41 year reign is the longest reign of any king in the northern kingdom. And Hosea was a prophet from the north who was sent to minister to the northern kingdom. Now, what was the situation like on the ground? Well, because of the long rule of Jeroboam, things were relatively stable and prosperous. And you can go into the book of Second Kings and you can find in there that during Jeroboam's reign, he actually won military conquests against Syria. He took back land. He was expanding their borders. Things were good externally. They were prospering. They were stable. They weren't being threatened by outside forces during the reign of Jeroboam. But as is often the case, when things are good on the outside, they're not good on the inside. There's rot in there. And so we come to Hosea's prophecy and see what some of the problems were. Turn over to chapter four with me in the book of Hosea. And we get a little bit of a summary. Look in verse 1. Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel. For the Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land." See, this is what I said to you last week, that the prophets acted like the prosecuting attorneys for God. They said, here's the covenant, and here's where you are not following it. So this is exactly that kind of a language. God's bringing a charge against His people, and the prophet acts as the attorney bringing the charge. What is the charge then? In the second half of verse 1, there's no truth or mercy or knowledge of God and the land. By swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all restraint with bloodshed upon bloodshed. So they're prosperous. They're wealthy, but they're decadent. Some people think that the wealthy are oppressing the poor. There's no morality in the land in terms of the way people are living. There's no truth, there's no mercy, and there's no knowledge of God. Sure, they worship God externally, but they don't really know and love God. And you see that happening, the throwing off of restraint in verse 2. And of course, we live in a day where moral restraint is constantly being thrown off. And if you try to come out and argue for some type of moral restraint, Now, people are going to try to destroy you because you can't legislate morality and you can't tell us the way to live. And so this was the day in which Hosea lived. And if you go down looking further in chapter four, Verse 6, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you've rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from being priests before me. Because you've forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children. So there's a forgetting of God's law. In verse 7, the more they increase, the more they send against me. Isn't that indicative of our day as well? The more we're prospered, the more we grow, The more we reject God, and that's certainly true of our culture, and that was what was going on in Hosea's time as well. And then if you look down at verses 11 and following, you see some specifics. Harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart. My people ask counsel from their wooden idols. And their staff informs them for the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray and they've played the harlot against their God. They offer sacrifices on the mountaintops and burn incense on the hills under oaks, poplars and terebinths because their shade is good. So they're actually worshiping other gods. And what does God call the sin of idolatry here in this text? He calls it harlotry. depending on your translation, whoring. It's a form of adultery to worship other gods. We spent a lot of time last summer talking about idolatry, spiritual idolatry, and pointed out there that anything we love on par with God is an idol in our lives. These people were literally seeking blessing from other gods. But we often are guilty of similar sins in that we seek blessing from other things, things other than God. And these can be good things. These can be your family. These can be your job. These can be your work in the church. But anything we love more than God or on par with God can be an idol. And these people were certainly guilty of idolatry. So if you turn over then to chapter 13, as we again just do a quick survey, we see the resulting judgment that's going to happen. In verse one of chapter 13, it actually mentions the idol Baal, so they're involved in Baal worship, apparently in their idolatry. And if you look then at verses 15 and 16, God says to them, though he is fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come. The wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness and this then his spring will become dry and his fountain shall be dried up. He shall plunder the treasury of every desirable prize. Samaria, that was the capital of the northern kingdom, is held guilty for she has rebelled against her God. They shall fall by the sword. Their infants shall be dashed in pieces and their women with child ripped open. Not a pleasant message. What is he saying to them? Because you've rejected Me, this is what's going to happen." And he says, a wind from the east is coming up. And we know that the nation of Assyria came from the east and did these very things. Samaria was wiped out. The people were destroyed. And this judgment came upon them because they had left the Lord their God their first love. And if you look at that little outline I gave you that you can see, look on the timeline again. After Jeroboam's reign, you see and probably why these kings aren't mentioned, you go through five kings in a period of 12 years and four of those kings are assassinated. So this period of stability was right before absolute disaster came. And Hosea there was the final king. And in 722 BC, the Assyrians did come from the east and did wipe out this nation completely. That's 31 years after Jeroboam died and everything looked great. And that nation ceased to exist on the earth. And Hosea was trying to warn them about that. And I think this is something we ought to listen to. Because Hosea comes to a people prosperous and stable and thinking things are going well, and he says to them, you have left your first love. And that's reflected in the way you operate. Yes, you worship me outwardly. You don't do it the way you're supposed to do it. You've mixed in worship of other gods as well. and your hearts are far from Me." And this is the temptation that every child of God faces all the time. It's very easy to leave your first love. I was trying to remember the way I was when I first was converted as a sophomore in college, and the joy and the enthusiasm I had for the Lord. And I'll tell you the truth, I don't feel the same joy and enthusiasm as I did then. I can remember it well. It's very easy for us to become so involved in all the things that we're doing, all the responsibilities we're doing. And our hearts are drawn away from them, even good things, away from God toward these things that we're involved in. And that happened in the nation of Israel. And God judged them And we need to think about whether that's happening in our own lives or not. Is God my greatest joy? Is God the source of my greatest satisfaction? Or is it things in the world? We're prone, just like these people are, to leaving our first love. Well, the book goes on to say that this is actually a rather serious problem. It's not just that, oh, well, we'll try better next time kind of a thing. The second point I'd like us to see is that your sin is described here as adultery. And you may say, well, is that too strong? Well, that's the language that Hosea uses. He uses two images in here to describe the people's turning away from God. And the first image that we'll look at is the image of a violated marriage. And God does something amazing here if you turn back to Hosea 1. He uses the prophet as a human object lesson of the message that he's trying to communicate. I gave you a quotation there on the outline from Anthony Salvaggio's book on the Minor Prophets. He says Hosea was not only asked to preach a message, he was asked to bear that message in his very flesh in order to wake up the world around him. And so we see in verse 2 that God commands him to marry a wife of harlotry. What? What does that mean? Marry a wife of hermitry. The commentators are all over the map on this. I think probably given the high moral standards for priests, and I think we can assume for prophets, that he's marrying a woman who at the time he's marrying her is not a harlot, but who is someone who's going to manifest herself as a harlot down the line. And so I think the best inference is he marries this woman, Gomer. God encourages them to do that. And when the marriage starts, it's a normal marriage. He loves the woman. He takes her to his home. There's all the excitement of a wedding day and the beginning of a new life together and all the joy that that brings. And then God blesses and sends a child. We're told that in verse 3. He went and took Gomer and she conceived and bore him, bore Hosea, a son. Things look great for a moment. But then God says, call the son Jez real, which means scatters, because God is going to scatter the people as a judgment for the bloodshed of the ancestor of Jeroboam, Jehu. Well, that doesn't sound very good that God would have him name his kid judgment. But sadly, it gets even worse, because then we see in verse six that she conceives and has a daughter. But notice what's missing. She doesn't bear to Hosea a daughter. She bears a daughter. And most people believe at this point, this child is not. Hosea's child. And something has gone wrong in this marriage. And now, Gomer is out acting on this description of her as a wife of harlotry. And this child, whom is named Lo-Ruhamah, which means no pity, no mercy, is not Hosea's child. It's the child of adultery. And then she has a second son. In verse 8, again, she conceives and bears a son. Not to Hosea, as was the case with Jezreel. Another illegitimate child. Call his name Lo-Ami, which literally means, not my people. Some commentators translate this, bastard. So, here the prophet has three children. Two are not his children. God is the one who's called him to do that. Why? Why? God is communicating to His people, this man and his family is an object lesson about you, the nation of Israel. There's going to be judgment, He says. That's why you named the first kid Jezreel. There's going to be no mercy. That's why you named the second child, lo ruchamah. And ultimately, God says, I'm going to disown you. You're not my people. That's why you named the second son lo ami, not mine. Now, if you've ever talked to a person who's had to live through the horror of marital infidelity. You know what an absolutely horrendous situation that is. It's a scarring situation. And apart from the grace of God, you never get over that kind of betrayal. But in most cases, that is not a public type of sin that's broadcast on the front of the paper. It is it is in the cases of celebrities, right? And we see that sometimes politicians and then this is in the newspaper and everybody knows. And people say poor Elizabeth Edwards, for example. Not only is her husband having children with other women, but everybody in the world knows. that this is happening. So there's not only the pain of the betrayal, there's the agonizing humiliation that goes with it. And I want you to realize, Hosea was a public person. who suffered not only the betrayal of his wife, but public humiliation. The people in the nation knew what was going on, knew the character of his wife. This is how he was able to serve as a human object lesson. And what is the lesson? The lesson is this is what sin against God is like. As horrible as that picture is of a wife betraying her husband, that's what your sin is like. That's what it's like when you choose sin over God. This is more important to me than my love for God. God says this is equivalent to adultery, to prostitution, to harlotry. And it's graphic language because our sin is graphic. And we need to be told that because we don't really believe it's the case. We don't really believe that it's the case, but God shows us through Gomer And Hosea, that this is the case. And if you're trying to identify with somebody in the story, you are to identify with Gomer, not with Hosea. You are not a righteous person who's been wronged. Right. You are Gomer. That's the analogy God is making here. And he connects these people with he connects the family of Hosea with his people. And we get the idea of sin against God is heinous. It's like adultery. But there's another image that's used in the book of Hosea. It's also like rebellion. And here, if we turn over to chapter 11, maybe you'll see that a little more clearly. It's like a rebellious child. So our sin against God, our turning away from God, it's like an unfaithful wife. It's also like a rebellious child. In chapter 11, verse one, when Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt I called my son as they called him. So they went from them. They sacrificed to the bales and burned incense to carved images. You see that Israel was a child and I loved him. And out of Egypt I called my son. You are my children, God says to the people of Israel. And yet, what have you done? You've left me to go serve Baal." And look at the language of verse 3. I taught Ephraim, that's one of the northern tribes, to walk, taking them by their arms. Any of you have young children where you've held out your hands and the child grabs onto your fingers and you sort of let the child take their first unstable steps and try to walk? Well, everyone who's a parent's done that. It's really cool to see your kids learning to walk. And God is saying here, you're my children. I've tenderly cared for you and taught you. And your response when you got old enough was to spit in my face and to walk away from me. That's the picture that Hosea is giving us. The first time Amy and I went to the international conference, it was held up in Carleton, Minnesota at Carleton College. And we went up there and never been to one of these international conferences, didn't know what to expect. We went to the first meeting when we got there and it was a message was being given. I don't even remember who the speaker was. The thing I remember most about that night, probably the only reason I still remember it is because after the speaker finished and the speaker talked about having wayward children at some point in that talk, And when the speaker finished, there were two families in front of us, two parents, two sets of parents, and they turned to each other and were just weeping on each other's shoulders almost uncontrollably. And I gathered after sort of trying to get out of there, not wanting to intervene or interfere in the moment, was that both of them had children whom they had tenderly raised and brought up who had walked away from the faith and turned their backs on the Lord and on their families. And they were absolutely devastated. And one of the men told me later he was this far from killing himself, his grief was so great, about his wayward daughter. You understand, children, your parents love you. They've held you in their arms. They've gotten up in the middle of the night when you were crying. They've sat up with you when you were sick. They'd give anything they could for you, but the one thing they want most for you is that you love Jesus Christ. That you love Jesus Christ. That's why they've brought you to church. That's why they've prayed for you. That's why they've taught you to read the Bible. And if you walk away from Jesus Christ, you will break your parents' hearts and you will break your own hearts as well. And that's what these people had done. God had given them everything. He cared for them. He provided for them. And they'd walked away from God. They'd spit in God's face. And again, That's who we are by nature. Think of all that God's done for you, and you still find ways to complain, don't you? You still find ways to disobey Him. I do too, all the time. We spit in God's face. Our sin is like the rebellion of a child. Well, thank God this book doesn't end just with these images of faithless children and wayward wives because this book shows us that Jesus Christ is the faithful husband who transforms his wayward wife. Look now with me at chapter 3. This is the shortest chapter in the book and one of the shortest chapters in the Old Testament. It's probably one of the most profound The Lord said to me, go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover. I think the NIV has a better translation. The NIV says, the Lord said to me, go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods, and love sacred raisin cakes. What's going on here? We get a clue in verse 2. So I bought her for myself, for fifteen shekels of silver and one and a half homers of barley. And I said to her, you shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man. So, too, will I be toward you. We have to read between the lines here. But what has apparently happened is Gomer, as she's been sleeping around, has left Hosea's house. And she's been so notoriously engaged in promiscuity that this is the words that describe her. She's a harlot. And she's found herself now enslaved, whether she's had debts she couldn't pay off or whatever has happened. She is a slave. And Hosea is asked to go to the market and to buy her back. How did they sell slaves in those days? naked. And this man is supposed to go and pay money for his wife standing there naked and utterly disgraced. And everybody in the community knows what kind of a woman she is. And many of the people who were there at the slave market probably know intimately what kind of a woman she is. One of the commentators notes he only pays 15 shekels for her. That's half price. It may be that this woman was so notorious that no one wanted to buy her. They'd all had her anyway. And with absolutely nothing redeeming about her at all, Hosea goes, buys her back, endures the unbelievable shame of buying his wife back brings her into the house to kill her? I mean, in that day, that would have been about the only rational solution. No. Not to kill her. To bring her under His roof so that she would not play the harlot anymore. Do you see what God's trying to show us in this passage? Who was it that came as the faithful husband? The bridegroom. It was Jesus Christ. The New Testament tells us that. And who came for a bride that had absolutely nothing redeeming about her? It was Jesus Christ. But you notice what Jesus had to do to buy His bride back? Jesus had to be paraded naked in front of all the people. He had to endure the shame of the cross in place of His bride, so His bride wouldn't suffer that. Jesus Christ came and did that for sinners like you and me. This makes no sense from one perspective, that a husband would do this. And that's what God wants us to understand. His grace to us through Jesus Christ is beyond us, in many ways, our human expectations of these things. Christ is the faithful and godly husband who buys back his people. And there's more than just he buys them back. Look at verse 5 in chapter 3. Afterward, the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God. And David, their king, they shall fear God, fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days. You see what he says? I will buy them back and they will be changed. They will seek me. So God promises not only that the Lord comes and redeems his people, but that the people will be changed. And if you flip back to chapter two, you see a similar idea. Look at verses 19 and 20 of chapter two where God says, I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice, in loving kindness and mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord. He will make his people righteous. He will make his people faithful. He will allow them to know the Lord. And isn't that what the New Testament tells us that Jesus Christ does? We're looking forward to celebrating a marriage coming up. And one of the things that we'll probably read at some point in the marriage is from Ephesians 5, the wedding ceremony. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. That's what Jesus Christ does. The husband, the groom that comes and actually purifies and changes His bride. And of course, the book of Revelation ends that way, doesn't it? Where the bride, we're described, the saints are described in glory as a bride arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright. For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saint that he makes us wholly and works in our hearts. I may have started a dangerous trend in our 20th wedding anniversary. I actually went and bought some jewelry for my wife. I'm sort of thankful Colleen moved because if she hadn't, I might have been in real serious trouble. But why do we do that, right? There's joy in seeing my wife enjoy a piece of jewelry, but in a sense, you give jewelry and it beautifies your wife in a very superficial way. But it does. And what the Bible is telling us is that Jesus Christ, the husband, does what no human husband can do. He makes his bride holy. He arrays her with holiness and righteousness. And he gives that from himself. And we see that picture here in the book of Hosea. You and I are naturally like Gomer, but our Savior takes us, buys us back and beautifies us. So God provides Jesus as the faithful husband. And then finally, Jesus is also the obedient son, whose love for the Father makes his own children obedient. Now we said that chapter 11 spoke about Israel as the Son. If you look just real quickly at verse 1 of chapter 11, you might have recognized that verse, out of Egypt I called my Son. That's a verse that Matthew quotes in Matthew chapter 2 and applies that to Jesus. And what Matthew says is, yes, I know in Hosea, we mentioned the fact that God called His people Israel, His Son, when He brought them out of Egypt. But Jesus Christ is the ultimate Son of God. The one that God brought from Egypt after Herod had tried to kill Him and His parents had fled to Egypt. He brought this Son, the true Son, to come and obey the Father perfectly. And then if you turn back into chapter 1, You'll see this imagery again in the text. Look at verse 10 now of chapter one. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people. There it shall be said to them, you are sons of the living God. Your sons of the Living God. You see what's promised here. God is going to take people who have rejected Him, turned from Him, and make them His children. He's going to call them sons of the Living God. The prophecy goes on to say that Israel and Judah will be united, that they'll be gathered together under one head, and that God will call His children Jezreel for blessing, and instead of Lo-Ruhamah, He'll call them Ruhamah, Right? Mercy for the daughters. And instead of Lo Ami, Ami. My people. He reverses all this dysfunction that was in Hosea's family. And you see what's being promised here. These people of Israel, they were wiped out 30 some years after. They were gone. That's not what God was talking about. God's talking about gathering His people together under one head. Jesus Christ, His Son. and making them children of the living God. And whereas we, by nature, are illegitimate children, disobedient children, he takes Christ, the perfect son who obeys his father perfectly and does so in our place and through Christ makes us his children, his real children. It brings us into his family and adopts us as his own. Gomer had One legitimate child with Hosea and two illegitimate children. And it's as if God takes the one legitimate child He has, the Lord Jesus Christ, and slays Him for the sake of redeeming the illegitimate children, the ones who are rebels by nature. And this is what He's done for us. Again, it makes no sense. from our standpoint, but this is the love and the grace of God in Jesus Christ. When I was about ten years old, and I may have told some of you this before, my brothers were eight and five and three, and I was about ten. My parents had a foster daughter who was older than the rest of us. And I don't know if we just drove her nuts or if there were other factors involved, but she would not stay with my family. My parents were prepared to adopt her. She was from a really difficult situation, very bad home situation. And they brought her back after she left. She wouldn't stay. She ran away. And she would have been treated just like a regular child with all the rest of us by my parents, but she wouldn't do it. She wouldn't do it. She turned away. God comes to us and says, you're by nature like an unfaithful wife. You're by nature like a rebellious child. Jesus Christ is a perfect child, a perfect husband who redeems his wife. And that's really where the book of Hosea ends. In chapter 4, he says, return to me. Return to Me." And this is the message. Return to the Lord your God. You've stumbled because of your iniquity, but there's God willing to take us, His people, back. So if you've never come to Christ, come to Him. If you've come to Christ, but find yourself leaning increasingly on things other than Christ, come to Him. Come to your first love, Jesus Christ, the faithful, husband, the obedient son, the one who brings us to God. Now, can you see why? Why has God begun these twelve minor prophets with Hosea? There's so much judgment in these prophecies because the people would not listen. And God is saying amidst all this judgment, this judgment comes in the envelope of grace. I love you. I love you like a bridegroom loves a rebellious and unfaithful bride. And that's how God wants to frame all the prophecies that are going to come after this. Let's pray. Lord, we come to You confessing that this is a challenging part of Your Word. It's hard for us to wrestle with the imagery of unfaithfulness of prostitution and adultery and illegitimacy. We realize that the reason this is in here is because the nature of our turning away from you is so is so graphic. It's so awful. And we need your help and we thank you that along with this imagery of the negative sort, there's this wonderful picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. the faithful bridegroom who endured all the shame of the cross to redeem his bride, and of the obedient son who was faithful and won salvation for his children. And we pray that we would find grace and strength in Christ, and that if our hearts are wandering from You, that You would bring them back as we think about the glories of our Savior and Your great love for Your people. And we pray these things in His name, Amen.