If you would be so kind as to turn to the book of Hosea, the book of Hosea. As God allows over the next several weeks, we'll be taking a look, a bit of a bird's eye look at this book. I'm not going to try to spend time with every verse in every chapter, but to really, we'll delve a little deeper in some sections than in others. but to have the overview of the message of this book, exploring the concept that God is faithful to us, even when we are unfaithful. And I pray that as we go through this precious, considered a minor prophet, because it's a little shorter, but it's one of the longer ones of the minor prophets. Certainly, there's nothing minor about the message of this prophet of God. So we'll begin reading at chapter 1 and verse 1, and I will read on down through chapter 2 and verse 1. If you're able, please, to stand for the reading of God's holy word, I'd invite you to do so. Hosea 1. The word of Yahweh that came to Hosea, the son of Be'ari in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. When Yahweh first spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, Go, take to yourself a wife of Horeb, and have children of Horeb, For the land commits great whoredom by forsaking Yahweh. So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. And Yahweh said to him, Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel and on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." She conceived again and bore a daughter and Yahweh said to him, call her name No Mercy for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel to forgive them at all. But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by Yahweh their God. I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen." When she had weaned no mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And Yahweh said, call his name, not my people, for you are not my people, and I am not your God. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, it shall be said to them, Children of the living God. And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head, and they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brothers, You are my people, and to your sisters, You have received mercy. God adds his blessing to the reading and hearing of his holy word. Please do be seated. Now you'll notice in the bulletin I've got the title here, the subtitle, After a Prophet of a Saving God, Overture. If you've got any musical background at all, you're probably familiar with the idea of an overture, particularly in an opera, something where you really see it done. an extended piece of music where that overture brings together all of the themes that are going to be explored and sung and performed in the remaining whole of the work and you get little snippets of all of it as kind of a preview of the tunes and the general progress of things that is about to happen. Well, in a sense, chapters one through three are really an overture to the rest of the book. They set the tone for the entire book as God commands Hosea to marry a woman who time will prove to be faithless. And the children of Gomer that she bears, her harlotry, Hosea's abiding love in the face of betrayal and the restoration of the marriage. all speak to the relationship that God has established with his people, which is really what this book is all about. The key verse of this prophecy is found in chapter three and verse one. Then Yahweh said to me, go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of Yahweh for the children of Israel who look to other gods and love raisin cakes. Israel was filled with a desire for pleasure and idolatry, and yet the Lord loved them in spite of it. As He dealt with them, certainly there would be judgment, there'd be correction, but He loved them and would not ultimately abandon them. Some of you are probably familiar with this, but Hosea's name, know what it means? It means salvation. It means salvation. And so his book is all about the enduring salvation that is ours in Yahweh, our covenant God. And particularly, as we're able to look back on this book through the eyes of the New Testament, we recognize that God's faithfulness is not ours because of our works, but it's because of the Father's decision. Christ's work. and the Spirit's regenerating power. So, as I've said before, Hosea's book teaches us that God is faithful to us even when we are unfaithful. Now, here in this part of the overture, as it will, we have a picture of Hosea's family life. And it's not a very nice picture. It's a pretty rough picture, in fact. So you can see the time stamp there in verse 1, as Hosea is ministering in the days of Uzziah and Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. So he has a fairly lengthy ministry. And if you recognize those names from the kings of Judah, you know that some, like Uzziah and Hezekiah especially, were more righteous kings. Jotham had his moments. Ahaz was certainly not a righteous king. And Jeroboam was an idolater of the first order and led people away, the son of Joash. And so the Lord, as you can tell just from the reading that we've done here, has basically had it up to here with Israel and their sin against him. But let's think about this. This is an incredibly remarkable situation, and one that, as I was reading through it, as you have read through it, I imagine that you're, particularly if it's the first time you've read through this, your eyebrows would be raised going, what in the world is the Lord doing here? Why is he asking Hosea to do something that is most certainly going to bring grief and sorrow? to Hosea, not to mention to the children that are involved and everyone else that's concerned. So let's think about this woman that the Lord commands Hosea to go and marry. He goes and takes Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. And he tells Hosea, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom. It's just shocking to even think about it. What in the world does this mean? What is God doing? God's command to marry an immoral woman poses a major ethical question. Is God setting aside His own rules in order to accomplish a point, proving a point. Now I've got, I didn't leave you a lot of room to write this in the notes, so you could just listen to most of it. There's five main possibilities of how to deal with this and what is going on. So I gave you enough to write down what I think is the correct one, but you can listen to the others, maybe summarize them. First of all, folks like John Calvin, for example, And Maimonides, a scholastic, early scholastic scholar, thought that the marriage that is being referred to here is just an allegorical device to try to communicate God's displeasure with Israel. Well, I mean, there's an element of truth there. Certainly there is an allegory that goes on. He even says, this is just like what Israel has done to me and how I'm responding to them. But the problem is, is that nowhere is there any indication that this command that is being done, the actual actions, are allegorical at all. It's stated that this is something that should be done. And you get in there with having the kids and everything else and they don't appear to be allegories as far as, yes, they have significance in their names. We'll talk about that in a bit. But they're actual children. There's an actual woman. This is It's not just a figure of speech as if there's no marriage that's taking place at all. It does seem to be historical and something that literally God is commanding. So that doesn't help us. It doesn't help us at all. A second option is that we regard Gomer as actually a harlot, perhaps a temple prostitute. And this option would suggest that God actually is setting his rules aside, that it's okay to marry such a person and to be involved with such a person which he's commanded elsewhere is absolutely forbidden, it's an abomination. But okay, let's say this option would say that he sets those rules aside to demonstrate his grace for an undeserving people. Now that sounds noble and all of that, but there's a problem. The law is so explicit regarding this that for Hosea to do this would totally destroy his ministry, utterly. And the woman and him, according to the law, should be stoned. Okay, so we've got, this is a big problem. The righteous would have insisted, especially that she be stoned. They would have ignored Hosea's objection saying, hey, God commanded me to do this. And if they were righteous, they would have gone, how in the world is God gonna command you to break his own law and go against his own character? So this doesn't really work. And of course the ungodly among them would have just cheered while dismissing anything that Hosea had to say of consequence. So that option doesn't seem to be very helpful. A third option is that this one gets a little, a little mystical sort of. thinking that maybe Gomer, she's an idolatress. She's guilty, not so much of physical immorality, but spiritual immorality, spiritual unfaithfulness to God. But the problem here is that it's hardly less sinful to marry a blatant unbeliever than an adulterous believer. I'm not sure that there's any improvement there whatsoever. 1 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul speaks to that thought. And then, if it's just spiritual, she was just an idolatress, well then, the children being born, either they're just a figment of somebody's imagination, or they have no real significance. So that doesn't work. All right, follow me so far? You see, I hope everybody's mental juices are going. How's this problem gonna get resolved? Here's the fourth option. Gomer started off pure, but she soon turned unfaithful. The badge wife of Hortum would then reflect God's knowledge of what she would become. And somehow this supposedly lets Hosea and God off the ethical hook. But the problem is, is that God is saying in one in chapter 1 and verse 2. He's not saying, go take to yourself a wife who will become immoral. He's saying, take a wife who is immoral. He's saying what Gomer is, not what she would become. Besides which, we know that time has no, as we know it, has no real significance for God. It really does take us back to the second option. that he's still telling Hosea to go marry an adulterous woman. So it doesn't help us at all. Fifth option, and this one, a friend of mine who is a professor back at Puritan Reform Theological Seminary, in Michigan, Michael Barrett, a marvelous commentator and excellent theologian, and he put forth this option in his comments on the book of Hosea that I think has a lot of merit. His thought, and I agree with him, is that Gomer was a woman who had a propensity towards immorality, that is, She's a child of the times. It really seems to fit the context. Israel is living in idolatry and in immorality. It's the norm and Hosea is being sent into that situation and is told to marry a woman who is a child of the times. He's not being told to go marry someone who's actively in prostitution or anything like that. The word here for whoredom is not the usual term, by the way, that's used to describe prostitution. It is an abstract term that seems to be speaking more to inner characteristics than actual behavior. Her immorality is a strong potential because she is a child of her times. and she soon became what she thought about. So all of these could perhaps have their challenges, but I think that's probably the best one here. The Lord is, there's no, Gomer, in other words, is not being forced by God to be immoral, or, and Homer is, Homer. Tell you, I'm having trouble with names today, Hosea. is not being told to go marry someone who's knowingly, whom he knows to actually be adulterous. But in any case, she is a woman who certainly whose life is going to demonstrate that she is not faithful at all. She is more concerned about herself and her own pleasures than she is about her relationship to Hosea. And that is very much what we see with Israel and Israel's relationship with God. And if you'll allow me to make the application to our own time, certainly within the Church of Jesus Christ, the Lord has called us to himself, has initiated a covenant with us, redeemed his people, and yet we, being children of the times, are all too prone to, as the psalmist says, to turn all like sheep. We've gone astray. We turn everyone to our own way. The Lord has delayed the iniquity of Christ, our iniquities upon Christ, and make him sin for us who knew no sin. So that's That's the picture of Gomer and by extension of Israel and those even among us who claim the name of Christ and claim a relationship and yet love to pursue our own pleasures and worship by our actions and deeds, any number of things other than our one true God, our spouse, spiritually speaking. So, that's the wife. Now, let's think about the children. And we see, beginning in verse 4, and then running on down through chapter 2 and verse 1, the discussion of the children, and this is some incredible contrasts here. Now, He tells Hosea, God tells Hosea to marry a woman of whoredom and have children of whoredom. Now, if he's married, this is another reason why we don't go with one of those options that she's an actual whatever, prostitute harlot. This does not mean that Gomer had children before she married Hosea. If they were children that came out of the relationship with Hosea, well, that's not a whoredom situation, right? That's a legitimate situation. So what is the Lord saying here? It is interesting, as we look at these children, that it appears that only one of them was actually legitimate. The first one, Jezreel. And we'll see that a little more clearly as we go along. The ESV has it translated quite well here. Take to yourself a wife of Horeb and have children of Horeb. It means that like their mother, the children are likely to follow the evil of their time. And so as we look at these three kids, we're gonna learn something about the way God deals with his people. Now the first one, Hosea verse three goes, and he takes Gomer and she conceives and bears him a son. Jezreel is the legitimate son of God's planning and ordination here. And I say planting deliberately because the word Jezreel means God sows. S-O-W-S. There's a double meaning here that I think is pretty apparent. God sows a son to anticipate the sowing and reaping of judgment. So in God giving the son, he's legitimate. before the Lord, and yet he's basically saying, the Lord is saying, normally when you have your children, you're usually pretty happy about this. And perhaps Hosea and Gomer were in a particular way. But it was God says, this is what his name is because this is what I'm going to do. He is going to bring judgment in the valley of Jezreel, a very fertile valley. where Assyria conquered the northern kingdom and carried them away. This is a promise of judgment. We talk about what we sow, that we will also reap. Well, God is sowing and it will bear forth the fruit of his judgment. And that is something that is legitimate. You can depend upon it. This is from God himself. Jezreel is the firstborn, right? So he's the son of power. He symbolizes the bow, the power that's going to be broken in the Valley of Jezreel. I have to think that Hosea and Gomer, with the birth of their firstborn son, found some joy in that occasion nonetheless. But to know that this child was given as a sign of judgment, had to be a hard pill to swallow. Perhaps that's one of the motivations or the excuses that Gomer would give for being unfaithful. Because it does appear that in the next two children, that Hosea is not the father. In verse six, she conceives again, it says. Now, it's a little bit of an argument from silence, but based upon some other texts, chapter two and verse four, upon her children also, I will have no mercy because they are children of whoredom. And then also a little bit later on in chapter three and verse one, the Lord said to me, come again, love a woman who's loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins. It appears that the latter two children are illegitimate children. The name that is given to the daughter in verses six and seven. Now we've just had the English translation here. No mercy. The Hebrew is low, which means no or not. Ruhamah is the word for mercy. So no mercy there, there's no lack, there's no reference to Hosea at all here. It appears that Gomer has despised her husband, has scorned his tenderness, has gone after the love of another. And essentially the Lord is saying, as she bears this child, he states right out that he's not going to spare. There is no mercy, there's no compassion. that God is going to show upon his people who despise his love. How would you like to have the Lord say to you, this is what you're going to name your child? No mercy, no compassion. Israel needed to be paying attention to what God is saying here. Just as you and I need to pay attention and be careful not to despise our Lord's love and look for pleasure, satisfaction, and deliverance from any other. Well, more time goes on. You notice that she finishes weaning one and then she gets pregnant again, whether by A third guy or whatever, we're not told, that's really beside the point, it doesn't matter, it doesn't appear to be Hosea again. She has not just had an indiscretion, which maybe if you were of the charitable sort, charitable in a worldly sense of, oh, it doesn't matter kind of sort, you might overlook the first affair, but it's clear that Gomer is in complete and utter rebellion and has abandoned any appearance of righteousness, any appearance of honor, any appearance of commitment to her husband as she has another child here. And so this son gets a name that fits that circumstance. Not just no mercy, judgment coming and God will not spare, but this one is lo ami. Lo again, not or no. Ami means people. You're not even my people. You completely abandoned me, the Lord is saying. Hosea gets to call his son no people, lo ami. Hosea knows the child is not his. And it's also the cry, not just of Hosea, but of God, who turns his back on a faithless nation. It's a rough situation, is it not? I'm thankful this section doesn't end here, but let's pause for a minute at this point and think about the ramifications of sin as we have a tendency to turn away from our Lord. We ought to seriously consider what God has said here, that he is going to bring judgment upon his faithless people. And they were faithless, obviously, before this event. That's why he sent Hosea to do this, to have this vivid picture of what was going on. This would have been something that, you know, In Hosea's world and their communities, it would have been known what Gomer was and what she was doing. And the blame that everyone would have looked at would be all on her shoulders, not Hosea's, as she abandoned the marriage and went after another. Judgment would be expected to follow. without mercy, and even indeed to the point where it would give the appearance that God would turn his back on the people of promise, those whom he had said that he would be their God and they would be his people. So that's where we're at here, and if we stop at that point, it's pretty hopeless, but I'm very thankful for the promised reversal of fortune that we see in verses 10 and following. When you look there, yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, it shall be said to them, children of the living God. And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together. They shall appoint for themselves one head and they shall go up from the land for great shall be the day of Jezreel." The judgment will take place, and certainly there's an immediate fulfillment of this, or more or less immediate, as the Assyrians would come, as I mentioned before, and carry off the northern kingdom. But the Lord throughout the prophets, while He promises judgment upon those people of His that are in rebellion, He also promises their ultimate deliverance. So when He has said, I'm not going to be your people, I'm not going to, as in verse 8 and 9, when He says, you're not my people and I'm not your God, He's not speaking in an eternal sense. He hasn't forgotten His eternal promises. they will not be able to say, hey, Lord, we're your people, so you should preserve us from all judgment and not do that. And he's like, no, you have demonstrated that your hearts are far from me and the judgment is certain. But he has not ultimately forgotten his people and not forgotten his promises to them that he's made many times before. And again, that should encourage us. How many times since you were born again have you sinned? How many times have you been filled with pride and selfishness and anger that's unjustified? How long have you spent more time thinking about the things of the earth than the things of God? How many times have you erected idols in your heart of people, or position, or power, or possessions, to the exclusion of what's truly important, the worship of the Most High God and devotion to Him? Would the Lord be justified in abandoning us? All things being equal, of course He would, except for one little thing. And that's the promise of redemption in the Lord Jesus Christ and the covenant made from before the foundation of the world through Jesus Christ, that his people would not be lost. And so for the sake of Christ, our Lord is faithful. For the sake of his own grace and mercy, he is faithful to his people. And that's what we see here, which seems like, I mean, you get to verse 10 and it's like this complete you know, 180 degree turn, it's like you've been talking about judgment and casting us off and everything, and then all of a sudden, nope, but I'm not gonna do that. But it's because of his own character and promises, he will not be untrue to himself and what he has said. So you see the Lord, by his grace and mercy, working in such a way that the judgments are reversed and undone, and God's people are ultimately blessed as he redeems them. In the book of Jeremiah, chapter 3, we read these words. Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, return backsliding Israel, says Yahweh. I will not cause my anger to fall on you, for I am merciful, and that is the same word that we talked about earlier of hesed, is covenant mercy. I am merciful, says Yahweh, I will not remain angry forever." Certainly there was judgment that fell upon the northern kingdom as they were carried away into captivity and eventually upon the southern kingdom as well. But the Lord was not going to abandon them forever. And so we have this reversal of fortune that's here. What we've had here in these brief verses is this overture that kind of sets the stage for how the context in which Israel is going to be addressed. The imagery that is here as well as the actual actions that are taken by Gomer and by Hosea are going to be carried out and shown to be this picture of how God deals with a rebellious people. God willing, next week, we'll spend some time there in the remainder of chapter two, and on into chapter three a bit, where we're going to look at the nature of the judgments that are going to come upon Gomer, and by extension, Israel, and then we will spend some wonderful time looking at the Lord's mercy as he restores that marriage. according to His merciful character, which is wonderfully encouraging after hearing this rather grim beginning. So this is a little less preaching today, but more of kind of laying the foundation for what we're going to be seeing in the chapters to come. And I trust, though, that as we look at this passage and think about this situation, Put yourself, on the one hand, in the shoes of Gomer, and see your own tendency to faithlessness, your own tendency to wandering, and see characteristics of ourselves that we need to be repenting of. But then also, put yourself then in the Lord's shoes, so to speak, in the Lord's place, and strive to comprehend how irreprehensible it is to receive mercy at His hand and then act as if it's nothing and live our own lives as if we have no obligation or relationship to Him. Because that's what Israel was doing. That's what we in our sins can all too often do, but by the grace of God we need to strive to be faithful to Him and and long for His mercy, so that we will not be named lo-Ruhemah, lo-Ami, no mercy, not my people, but rather to be named as His people. As we see here in this one, kind of sums up the overture here in chapter 2 and verse 1, say to your brothers, Let's remember the brother is lo ami. You are my people. Say to your sisters, You have received mercy. And it's the same words there. Say to your brothers, ami, instead of lo ami. Say to your sisters, ruhama, mercy, instead of no mercy. The Lord's making it clear, situation is dire, but it's not hopeless because of who he is and what he does and how he acts. Let's rest in that, shall we? And let's go to prayer. Our gracious God, We would not be numbered among those who could be labeled Lo-Ruhamah, Lo-Ami. We desire your mercy. We desire to be numbered among your people. Lord, even as we consider the name of the legitimate son in this account, Jezreel. Lord, you are the one who sows. You have sown the gospel in our hearts. We pray that it would bear forth fruit. Lord, let us not walk in rebellion so that you sow, instead of good news, you sow the seeds of judgment to come because of our faithlessness. Lord, let us not be like Gomer, but let us be holy and righteous unto you. Give us the grace, Lord, to walk in such a way so that you will be glorified and your church built up. We pray these things in Christ's blessed name. Amen.