It's a little bit of a multi-direction. We've been going through the minor prophets, and we've usually gone to the next one. We've just turned the page and hit the next one. But Hosea actually begins the minor prophets. We've been looking at the books that, in your Bible, age-wise, after Hosea, but actually before him. So in Hosea, chapter 1, I'll be reading only the first verses. It's the introductory one of the book. We'll be having a lot of other scripture passages in the sermon itself as we look at the background to this. But the background to this covers such a long period of time that, instead of as we normally do when we begin a book, and I just read through, The word of the Lord that came to Hosea and the Son of Mary in the days of Uzziah, Jopham, Ahaz, and Zechariah. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your wondrous gift to the world. We pray that this day you will give us a year to clear our minds from this pain. We pray, Father, that you would send forth your spirit with your word to do this good work in us, drawing us ever nearer to Christ, who is in heaven to be with us, informing us more and more of his blessed image, equipping us to live and serve in his kingdom in such a way as to bring him glory. Be with your servant. We come to the Book of Hosea. Remember, we've already worked through history really going back to the time of Elijah. We come to the book of Hosea and this morning I just want to give a broad So let's just take a look at who this man is, Hosea the prophet. We don't know a whole lot about him. In some of the prophecies we get quite a bit of background about the book. We'll get different biographical things. Remember in the book of Amos, there were times when Amos would give us some insight into his life, where he came from, what he did, where he was sent, and so many interactions we had with those. Hosea, however, says very little. It just says that the word of the word came from Hosea. in a sense, or can we say, providentially predetermined, because his book is all about God's salvation, what he does for his people. We'll see as we go through. We don't really know who this Liam Berry, his father, was. The name shows up from time to time in the Chronicles, but never in mention, saying, well, this is the father of Hosea. And many times, he John's in the community, who is it really? Without anything else, it doesn't do us much help. He most likely, though, was of Israel, the northern kingdom, and was sent to the northern kingdom. While Valley Hope will see this time, he says he'll group together Judah and Israel, it seems he's predominantly speaking to the northern kingdom of Israel. Now, this is significant, and in a minute we'll see who other people were around at the same time. But for one, he goes from the time of Jeroboam II, remember when we were talking about Amos and Jonah were under Jeroboam as well. That was one of the great golden ages of the northern and southern kingdoms. the great world power, had been weakened a bit from different internal strife and other things, and Islam drew to use Islam to expand their borders basically to the size it was during the time of King David. So it was a golden time, but they had great military might, they were incredibly wealthy, that's where over the time Hosea's ministry ends, Israel and the Holy Kingdom doesn't even exist anymore. Assyria came and wiped them out. Over the time, they're losing more and more power. They're losing money because they have to peg off all their kings to try to keep them being conquered. And they end up conquering. So in the life of Hosea, he goes from seeing poverty and wealth and Israel being self-sufficient and proud to Israel being absolutely humble and wiped off the map. Hosea himself may have lived to be 100 or more years old, because the book starts, we'll see next week, with him getting married. So he had to be at a marriageable age, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 years old. And as you follow all the kings he lived with, The book is a pretty simple breakdown. Chapters 1 through 3 kind of use Hosea's life as a parable for God's relationship with Israel. So as we'll see starting next week, Hosea is called to marry an adulterous woman and has children who were given needs that point to how God deals with Israel. And then that marriage is ultimately restored. Israel is the unfaithful wife. Israel is the rebellious child. Then the second half of the book, from chapters 4 through 14, basically talks about Israel's rebellion, the coming punishment, and their restoration. Especially at that point, Israel is set back and forth between these two heads again. Being an unfaithful spouse, being unfaithful in God's covenant, and also being a rebellious child. and not being grateful and being rebellious, but that highlights that God is grateful. Instead of openly casting them off forever, he redeems them and restores them. The world of Hosea, which we find especially in 2 Kings 15-18, you can actually sense an end to the life of Hezekiah. You can even go further in the chapters 19, 20, and 21, also the chapters and chronicles that follow it. And as well, the Book of Amos, which we've already studied. Remember, in the Book of Amos, he gave us a picture of what was going on in the northern kingdom is the rich and powerful were getting more and more rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and weak. They were exploiting the people. There was neither love for God. Their religion was purely external. nor love for man. If they could abuse people, they would. Anything, they'd get it in. And Amos had warned them, told them to turn from this, but it said, God will break his hand of judgment against them if they do not turn. Now, Amos lives at the same time as Hosea. So that's going on. So we get some of the background from Hosea as we went through Hosea to Amos. If you remember that book, that's a lot of the background through this same time. In the larger world, what's going on is these And they had been given a lot of internal struggle. Remember Jonah lived at this time as well. Jonah had gone and announced God's judgment coming upon Assyria. I'm going to give you a little bit of background on this. those areas. So what's going on with those people? Well, they go back and forth between fighting with each other. When Assyria's not strong, they all fight with each other to see who can gain the most land and power. But when Assyria starts flexing its muscles, they either fight with Assyria, or they make treaties with Assyria to fight against the other people. So there's all this political intrigue. Everybody's kind of in survival mode, because they all basically know they can't stand up against the Assyrian troops who in Ethiopia, they're the other big world power, and they don't like Assyria coming down that way because it threatens them, so they come from the south, and they're always pushing up this way back against Assyria. So you have people in Israel and Judah and Syria, and you're looking in one direction, from the north and east, here are the Assyrians, and to the south is the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, and they're always saying, well, how can I get one big guy to fight the other big guy? time to live, a very dangerous time. And it's a great temptation to make political alliances to keep from being wiped out. And that's what we'll see was part of the problem of the Northern Kingdom, was making all these alliances and not relying on God. Instead of saying, our God will deliver us, like they would say in the Psalms, they said, well, we need to make all these political alliances. We need to do these things. So that's what's going on in the broader world. I'm going to give you a couple of examples. under the time of Ahab, they started bringing in and worshiping the Baals and the Asherahs. And God had warned them about this. And he sent the lie to the prophet. And then the lies to the prophet. And then he sent them Obadiah and Joel and Amos up around the same time. He had sent Jonah to Nineveh to the Assyrians to call them to repentance. Living at the same time as Hosea is the great prophet Isaiah. And he's down in the south. And Judah, speaking to the king, Religiously, down in the south in Judah, you have the priests and the Levites. In the north, you have the false religion that's been mixed with worship of the gold, the calves, and the beasts. It's not also the males. You also have, down in the south, the kings of David, from the line of David, the rightful kings. In the north, you have the apostate kings, who have turned away, who are not authorized by the law. In the south, you have Isaiah and Micah preaching to the people there. In the north, you have Amos and Hosea preaching. And way out in Assyria, you had Jonah preaching. But then Hosea tells us the list of the kings who were living during his time. This helps us to fill in some of the background, what's going on in the south in Judah. what's going on in the north. He started by saying he served in the days of Uzziah. Uzziah is also spoken about as Azariah. Many times in that culture you have two different names. So when you find in 1 Kings where it talks about Azariah, he's also spoken of in Chronicles and later in Kings as Uzziah, it says this, It says, in the 27th year of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Azariah, the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, became king. He was 16 years old when he became king, and he reigned 52 years of Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done, except that the high places were not renewed. The people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. So the first king lives for quite a long time. He was a good king, a godly king, except he still let them sacrifice in the high places. After him comes Japheth in 2 Kings 15. In the second year of Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, king of Israel, Japheth, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah began to reign. He was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zechariah, and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. He did according to all that his father Uzziah had ordered. He built the upper gate of the house in the womb, and the rest of the acts are taught And Ahaz, his son, reigned in this place. So the king after Uzziah is another good king. But again, he allows this compromise to go on, this worshiping in the high places. And also, you start to see some of the political intrigue. The king of Israel now conspires with the king of Syria to start pressing against Judah, the southern kingdom. The next king is Ahaz. The second king is 16. This is in the 17th year. Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he remained 16 years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in his sight of the Lord, but his God, as his father David had done. But he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. Indeed, he made his sons pass through the fire according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had passed out from before the children of Israel. And he sacrificed and earned incense at the high places and on the hills and under every Then Rez, the king of Syria, and Pecha, the son of Jeroboam and Eliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to make war, and then deceived Ahaz. But he could not overcome them. At that time, Rez, the king of Syria, captured the lot of Assyria, and drove the men of Judah from the lot. Then Edomites went to the lot, and Welder did the same. So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Beliezar, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Syria, from the hand of the king of Israel who rides up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house that we were in, the treasuries of the king's house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria heeded him. So the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, carried it to these folks, captured it here, and killed Reza. Now, King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Balasor, king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was in Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to him a rod and a priest, and designed the altar and its pattern according to all its workmanship. King Ahaz came back from Damascus. And when the king came back from Damascus, the king saw the altar, and the king approached the altar and made offerings on it. So he burned his burnt offering and his grain offering, and he poured out his grain offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offering on the altar. He also brought the bronze altar, which was before the Lord, from the front of the temple, from between the new altar and the house of the Lord, and put it on the north side of the new altar. Then King Ahaz commanded Elijah the priest, saying, I'm to break your altar, burn the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, the king's burnt sacrifice, and his grain offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the world, their grain offering, their drink offerings, and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and the blood of the sacrifices. And the man's altar shall be to be required by him. Thus did Elijah the priest support the wall that King Ahaz commanded. And King Ahaz cut off the panels on the carts and removed the ladders from them. Also, he removed the Sabbath for a million, which they had built for their temple. He removed the king's outer entrance from the house of the Lord on account of the king of Assyria. Now, the rest of the acts of Ahaz, which he did, were they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah? So Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And Hezekiah's son reigned in his place. Now we get the king out of here. Too good God became. So now you get himself. He says, when the children pass in the fire, that's when they would burn children alive to the God Kimosh, the Moabites' God. He strikes a deal with the king of Assyria, Tiglath-Meazer III, and says, come defend me from Syria and Israel. So he gives him money, so he's sort of taking the gold and silver out of the temple and gives it to him. And he comes in an alliance. Not only does he do that, but when Tiglath and Lazarus conquers Damascus, Syria, he goes up to meet him there and he sees an altar to a Syrian god. And he says, you know, I want one of these in the temple in Israel, in Judah. So he sends back the high priest and says, I want to build an altar just like this. So they start to tear down the Lord's altar and move him from the place and bring his altar to a false god So we'll see as we go through Hosea, while he mostly speaks to the north, because most of the kings in the south were good, there is a time period when there was a wicked king in the south who wasn't relying upon the word God of Israel to protect him, and is worshipping a foreign god. So he'll have some words to speak to them. After Ahaz, we get to Hezekiah. It says of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18, Now it came to pass in the third year of Hosea, the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Jerusalem and of Eden, was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he remained twenty-nine years of Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi, the daughter of Jechron, and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image, and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until this day the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it tabushka. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who before him. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept his commands, which the Lord had commanded Moses. The Lord was with him. He prospered wherever he went, and he rebelled against the king of Israel. the watchtower to the fortified city. So you get to the end of Hosea's life, and in the south, things were looking pretty good. You had toots, good kings, then a wicked, terrible king, but then, through the ministry of Isaiah and the ministry of Micah, God brings a revival, as it were, to the southern kingdom, and God raises up a godly king. So by the time you get to the end of Hosea's life, in Judah, things were looking pretty good. In the north, things aren't quite so good. For one, he only mentions one king to the north, Jeroboam. But if you go to the times of Hezekiah, there's many kings to the north. Why does he only mention Jeroboam and nobody else? Well, Jeroboam and his son Aphram, Zechariah, who only lasted for six months, they were the end of the dynasty of Jadab. Remember Jadab? We're back in the times of Elijah and Elisha. And God promised to Jadab that his family would reign for four generations. So when we get to the end of the fourth generation, that's it of those who got authorized into the north. He'd given no promises to any other kings. So it's probably that Hosea just looks at these other kings after the reign of Jeroboam and his son's reign is so short, it's not even worth mentioning, that he doesn't mention how their kings would be worth, because they're all illegitimate. They should not be kings over the people. So he doesn't mention them. But who are these kings? What were they like? Well, again, 2 Kings, starting in chapter 14, tells us of Jeroboam. It says, in the 15th year of Amaziah, the son of Joab, as king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joab, as king of Israel, became king in Samaria and reigned for 41 years. He became evil in the sight of the world. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of God, who had made his rule sin. This was a wicked, terrible, Not in the way that you see in some other books, not like Ahab who brought in the Baals, but in that he kept following what the first Jeroboam had done, and having the people worship the golden calves. So it's spoken of him and of his long reign that he was a bad king, and he didn't depart from the sin. His son Zechariah comes next. He says, in 2 Kings 15a, in the 30th year of Hazariah, king of Judah, Zechariah, the son of Jeroboam, reigned over Israel and Samaria for six months. He made evil in the sight of the Lord and his fathers at night, and he did not depart from the sons of Jeroboam, the son of Abba, who had made Israel sin. Then Shalom, the son of Jabesh, conspired against him and struck him and killed him in front of the people, and he reigned in his place. And the rest of the Acts of Zechariah 8, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. This was the word of the Lord, which he spoke to James, saying, your son shall sit on the throne of Israel for the fourth generation. He spoke the word of the Lord. Zechariah, Jeroboam's son, is another bad king. Walks in the ways of the first Jeroboam, beating the people, commercial people, the calves. And he is murdered six months into his kingdom. And this is going to start. You'll see as we go along that what happens is we keep having murder after murder, assassination after assassination. In fact, there's only one king. He has his kingdom down to his son. So one king reigned in the south, and one king reigned for over 50 years. Here, they're very short reigns, because there's so much turmoil. And this ends, according to the prophecy, with Zechariah. That's the fourth generation of Jacob's line. That's the end of those who are legitimate in the kingdom of God, in the northern kingdom. We get to the next king, which is Shalom. Second Kings 15. Shalom, the son of Jabas, became king in the 39th year of Isaiah. and he reigned a full month in Samaria. From Mennahem, the son of Gad, he went up from Tirzah, came to Samaria, and struck Shalom, the son of Jadab in Samaria, and killed him, and he reigned in this place. Now the rest of the Acts of Shalom and the Conspiracy of the Two Dead, indeed, they are written in a book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Here we don't even see whether there's a good and bad king, because he only lasted for one month, and he is murdered. So we've already got, we're already three kings into Hosea's time, two of whom didn't even last a full year between the two kings. One is killed after six months, and the man who murdered him is murdered one month into history. After him is Menahem. In 2 Kings 15, it says, then from Tirzah, Menahem continued. Menahem attacked Thithsa and all who were there in its territory, because they did not surrender. Therefore, he attacked it. All the women there who were with child from Rivko in the 39th year of Azariah came to Menahem, the Son of God. He became king over Israel. And he made 10 years of his marriage. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart all his days from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Kul, king of Assyria, came against the land, and Menahem gave Kul 1,000 talents of silver that his hand might be with him to strengthen his kingdom under his control. And Menahem exacted the money from Israel from all the very wealth of each man 50 shekels of silver to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back and did not stay in the land. Now the rest of the Acts of Menahem, although he knew, they're not written in the Book of the Prophets or the Kings of Israel. So Menahem rested with his fathers, the Tekehi and Sonri in his place. So Menahem, who was a murderer, he starts out with brutality. The city didn't surrender to him after he had taken over the kingdom. He rips open the pregnant women as a show of his violence and his wickedness. He continues in a long and terrible ball to worship the golden calves. He is now in a position of weakness. Now he starts extracting from him, basically shaking down the rich people. We need money, because I need to pay off the Assyrians, so they don't take away my kingdom. So now the northern king, remember the southern king you wanted to ask? They're paying Assyria, protect us from Israel. Israel's paying Assyria, protect us from Judah, protect us from Syria. So everybody's sending money to Assyria to help them. And whenever Assyria gets money, what do they do? They say, OK, we'll leave you alone for a little while. This is all that's going on. Now he's one of the few of the kings His son is Pecahiah, who finds himself in Kings 15 again. In the 15th year of Azariah, king of Judah, Pecahiah, the son of Menahem, became king over Israel and Samaria, and reigned two years. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Habakkuk, who made Israel sin. Then Pecah, the son of Reveliah, an officer of his, conspired against him and killed him in Samaria, into Citadel of the king Now notice, this is in the 50th year. That's right, we're still in the time of the first king in the south. So in that time, we've already had four kings. Three of them were murdered. Although, that's how bad things are in the North compared to the South. And this is another fact. Said he didn't do right. Said he didn't. He believed in the people, again, in their worship of the Lord. Yes, remember, all this time, Hosea is preaching to them. All this time, Amos had been preaching to them. These were people who their grandparents had murdered. Elijah and Elijah preached to them. But they keep going on in their wickedness. And they'll stop and they'll make a hideous murder by a cat. He is the next king. Of Pekka, we're told, in 2 Corinthians 15, in the 52nd year of Azariah, king of Judah, Pekka, the son of Ramaliah, became king over Israel, Samaria, in the mean 20 years. And yet, evil and decider of the world, he did not depart from the sentence of Jeroboam, the son of Habakkuk, king of Israel, said. In the days of Pekka, king of Israel, Tiglath-Bileazor, king of Assyria, came and took Ajahn, Abel, Bethlehem, Chag, Noah, Cain, or Caesar, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Hebron. And he carried him captive to Assyria. Then Hosea, the son of Elah, led a conspiracy against Pechah, the son of Abeliah, and struck and killed him. So he remained in his place until the twentieth year of Japheth, the son of Uzziah. Now the rest of the House of Pechah, all they knew, indeed, they already knew, quote, from the chronicles, So, Pecah, who had murdered Pecahiah, Pecah himself is murdered by the next one we take, Hosea. He was again one who would not turn from the sin. Now again, remember, they're constantly being preached to. Turn from this sin. God is going to bring judgment if you don't. And they continue and continue and continue. Now imagine, living in this time, that king after king after king is being murdered in the south. Pecah starts, Uzziah is still king. One king in the south, and now there are six kings in the north, five of whom are assassinated. We get to the final king born in Samaria, who has the same name as our prophet. In 2 Kings 17, it tells us, in the twelfth year of Ahaz, king of Judah, Hosea, the son of Elah, became king of Israel and Samaria in the mid 9th year. But not as the kings of Israel who were before him. Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against him, and Hosea became his vassal and gave him tribute money. And the king of Assyria uncovered a conspiracy by Hosea, for he had sent messengers to sow king of Egypt and brought no tribute to the king of Assyria as he had done year by year. Therefore, the king of Assyria shut him off and bound him in prison. Now the king of Assyria, with about all the land, went up to Samaria and said, In the ninth year of Hosea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried away Israel from Assyria, and placed them in the law by the Hagarim, the river of Grozon, in the cities of the east. For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and they had feared other gods. And he walked with the statutes of the nations of the Lord that had been cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, and said, Also, the children of Israel secretly belittled to the Lord their God things that were not right. And they built for themselves high places in all of their cities from the watchtower of the good white state. They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill under every green tree. There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom the Lord had carried away before them. They did wicked things to promote the Lord to anger them. But they served idols, of which the Lord had said, and you shall not do this. Yet the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by all those prophets. Every seer said, Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by the servants of the prophets. Nevertheless, they would not hear, but stiffened their necks like the necks of their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God. And they rejected his statutes and his covenants that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he had testified against them. They followed idols, became idolaters, and went after the nations who were all around them, concerning them with what it charged them that they should not do the will. So they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, made themselves a molded image of two halves, made a wooden image and worshiped all the hosts of heaven and the sun and the air. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and soothsayer, and sold themselves to be evil in the sight of the Lord through a broken hand. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah alone. Also Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel as they had been. And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of plunderers, until He had cast them out of the sight. For He tore Israel from the house of David, and He made Jeroboam the son of the god of Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord and made them commit a great sin. For the children of Israel walked in all the sentence of Jeroboam which he gave them. They did not depart from him. He told them who were bringing Israel out of his sight, as he had said by his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria, as it is this day." During his time, he first starts making a deal with Assyria, so Assyria won't conquer him. Then he plots against him and says, you know what? I can get away from Assyria by making a treaty with Egypt. And he sends money to Egypt, sends his money to Assyria. Assyria coming down to Egypt isn't strong enough to defend Israel. And Assyria conquers the northern kingdom of Israel and brings it into captivity. Totally wipes them out. But then notice how, God's word ends that period. It steps away from Hosea and says, he was a wicked king. And now it says, it's not just that he was a wicked king, they were a wicked people. That the people themselves, from the time God brought them out of Egypt, They were faithless. That they have seeking after the other gods who God warned them, do not seek after other gods. He says, it's not just they just fell into sin. He said they sold themselves to do evil. They sold themselves back into sin and slavery. And it says that God warned them again and again and again in the prophets that they must turn away from the hope and judgment. And by the time we get to the end of Hosea's mission, the northern kingdom is wiped out, is no more, and God had brought His judgment justly and promisingly. So we see during the time of Hosea the prophet, political corruption, politicians report that they're using political alliances that God had warned them not to make. He was their strength. He was their shield. He was their shepherd. They were supposed to trust him. They rejected that. They had no trust that God could protect them, but instead looked to the nations around them. We see corrupt religion. In the South, we see Ahaz bringing that in. But in the North, they can continue in their wicked worship following the wickedness of Jeroboam I, who had them worshiping the golden cows. They should have rejected false worship, and they didn't. Instead, they added to their false worship. They were worshipping the bronze serpent that the people of Israel captured way back in the days when they wandered in the wilderness. They were worshipping the bronze serpent. They worshipped the veils. They worshipped them all the time, under every green tree, no matter where you turned in Israel in the north. So you had corrupt religion, and you had corrupt people. The people were no better than their leaders. They were just living their life sold out to sin. What you have is the people that God had warned, and warned, and warned, and warned, and He continued in your covenant on faithfulness. So what is the message of Hosea? The message of Hosea is the Lord God of Israel is faithful to His covenant, whether it means bringing judgment or showing mercy. He is faithful to His covenant, even when His people were not. His people who have been unfaithful the whole time. Again, it gives you a picture of basically an unfaithful spouse, an adulterous spouse, or a rebellious child. But God is always faithful, Hosea says. He's faithful in bringing judgment, but He's also faithful in showing mercy. That even though His people were incredibly wicked, they were like an adulterous woman who should not have been cast out, but should be stoned to death. They were like, not only were they rebellious children that should have been sent out, and again, under the law of God, continued rebellious children to be stoned to death, God in His great covenant love, in the end, redeemed them, and showed them mercy. Because He is faithful, even when His people are faithless. That means the Book of Hosea ultimately points us to Jesus. Because it's in Jesus that we see the covenant faithfulness of God. God is faithful to His covenant, and His covenant, He says, He will punish sin. And in Jesus, He punishes the sin of His people. Pouring out His wrath upon Jesus, the sin bearer. But God is also faithful unto a person. And in Jesus, we see the person. the lessons of the covenant, redemption and life for his people. So a book of Hosea, whose name means salvation, points us to the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So just starting from this introduction, what should we do? How do we live our lives in the light of Hosea? Well, for one, Hosea is important to us, to the church as a whole and to us as individuals. When we run after the world and the things of the world, when we place our heart at anything more than God, we become spiritual adulterers. We love something more than God. We say, oh, I still love God, but we love something more than Him, or alongside of Him. And He warns, if you do this, My judgment will come upon you. We are like rebellious children. God gives us good things. He's redeemed us out of it. He's set us apart as His own people. We say, God, what I want is the stuff You can give me, but I don't want You. That's the church of 2 in 1. It warns us that if we are faithless, since God is faithful to His covenant, He must punish sin. And He will bring judgment upon our heads. If we, like Israel, are unrepentant, if we keep hearing His word, year after year, week after week, and just blow it off. But it's also a message of hope to us. If God can receive back his invulnerable wife, instead of having her stoned, instead of cutting her off forever, can we bring her back and love her again? If instead of killing his rebellious children and having them sold to death, if he could bring them back and make them his children, he'd father life as Jesus did. welcome back those who repent and turn. He will restore us to the bride of Christ. He will restore us to the children of God. That you can't sin so much that you can't come back anymore. If you repent, move. for those who will turn from their sin and embrace Jesus. Those who wish to continue living in their sin will wind up like this or like the end of the story. Cut off from my life forever, for those who depend on me will be like the adulterous woman who was restored for marriage, and the children who were brought back. You will be welcomed back as a king. So may this book, as we begin to study, warm you and turn from your sin. warn you to repent and not to live in their sin, and they encourage you that the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ is greater than your sin, and because he is faithful to his covenant, he will do everything that is necessary to bring his people to himself in repentance. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, may we see in Hosea the picture of who you really are, Jesus Christ. May we take the morning and look what goes on. May we turn from our spiritual adulteries and rebel. May we not be like Israel of old, where morning after morning again, we've not turned from our sin, but continue to turn away from it. Instead, may we be