The following sermon by Pastor Philip M. Way is presented by Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Marble Falls, Texas. And now, may our gracious God use His Holy Word to save sinners, sanctify saints, and exalt His Son, our only Savior, Jesus Christ. Join us as we spend this time in the Word. Take your Bibles with me this morning and open, if you will, to the minor prophet Hosea. Hosea follows right after Daniel, if you get to Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk or Amos. Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, you've gone too far, turn around, go back. This is the first book of the minor prophets in order in which has been put into Scripture. It is not, however, the first, if you put them in the date, of the order that they were written. Obadiah, Joel, Jonah, and Amos were written before Hosea. And the ministries of Isaiah, Micah, and Amos overlapped with Hosea during the same time period. As we begin this new series, it's titled, God's Redeeming Love, as we look at these 14 chapters. For a minor prophet, we're going to learn this morning and throughout the coming weeks that Hosea had a rather long ministry. We all know the major prophets, at least I hope you know the major prophets. If we had a pop quiz this morning, how many of you could name the major prophets? Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. They all wrote lengthy books of prophecy. Their ministry spanned decades. Hosea actually has 14 chapters, along with another minor prophet, Zechariah, who also has 14 chapters. They're the longest books by a minor prophet. We don't call them minor because their ministry was any less. It is simply just a reference to what they wrote. When you compare Hosea at 14 chapters, and you compare that to Isaiah at 66 chapters, and Jeremiah, and all of these other great humongous works, I would be amazed to preach through one of those major prophets at some point. I can only imagine how long that would take. But Hosea with his 14 chapters, while he's named a minor prophet, this is not a minor ministry. His ministry covered 50 years from around 760 to around 710 BC. And that's important to keep in mind in the timeline, because it was in 722 BC that Israel was taken captive by Assyria as judgment for their sin. So he is preaching and ministering to Israel up to and before the time of their captivity. Hosea 1.1 then lists for us, the kings of Judah and of Israel who reigned during his time of ministry to the people as he preached the Word of God specifically to the people in Israel. And his preaching did have as its theme, God's redeeming love. And this book really is an amazing pageant. This book is a living parable where God uses Hosea and his family to put on a show for the people, to make a point about sin and about redemption. In the family, Hosea represents God, of course. His wife Gomer represents Israel, the people of God. And Hosea is preaching and presenting a picture of salvation even in the midst of judgment. In fact, the name Hosea means salvation. Who else in Scripture had a name that means salvation? It means deliverance. That would be Jesus. That was His name. In Hebrew, Yeshua. If we translate Jesus from Hebrew into English, Yeshua, it's actually Joshua, which means salvation. Joshua in the Hebrew, if we translate that to Greek, it's Yesus. I-E-S-O-U-S, and if we take that from the Greek to the English, it is Jesus. People say that we should call Jesus Yeshua Hamashiach, Yeshua the Messiah, not use the term Jesus when referring to him, but use that Yeshua or that Joshua. That's really not an argument because my name is Philip, if I was French it would be Philippe, if I was Spanish it would be Felipe, it's all the same name. The word Jesus is this transliteration. It's directly from the Greek to us in English because the New Testament is written in Greek, so we have the name Jesus. The point is that Jesus has been called by many different versions of that same name in many different languages around the world. What does it all have in common? His name means salvation. That's Hosea's name as well. It is a direct reference to deliverance, to the salvation of God. So as we begin, we're going to look this morning at chapter 1. In the first verse of chapter 2, in an examination of Hosea's family, we're going to get a lot of history, a lot of background this morning. Hosea writes for us to start, "...the word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Berei, 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." So here he gives us the kings who reigned when he ministered as a prophet from Israel. Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. Now remember to set the historical context here. As a result of the sins of David and Solomon, especially Solomon, The kingdom of Israel was going to be split. And in fact, under Solomon's successor, under his son Rehoboam, in around 930 BC, the nation of Israel split. Judah and Benjamin forming Judah in the south with Jerusalem as its capital, and Israel consisting of the other ten tribes to the north. Israel throughout the Old Testament is also called Ephraim, because Ephraim was the largest of those ten tribes. It's also referred to by their geographical location, which is Samaria, and they divided north and south. Now, you'll see then that we are not the first nation to have a civil war between the north and the south. It was a civil war. The kingdom did split. There were then two lines of kings, two capitals, two nations, Jerusalem and Judah, Samaria in Israel to the north and Ephraim to the north. These two nations now, subsisting, God refers to them as sisters. And He says here, as we look at Hosea, as we see this record, we have in the record of Scripture God sending the prophets to His people. Some went prophesying to Judah, some went prophesying to Israel, one went prophesying to Nineveh. We know who that was. That was Jonah. And it's interesting because Hosea and Jonah are the only two of the prophets who came from the north. All of the rest of the prophets came from Judah to the south. For the historical background, for the events that took place during this time, write down that you can go read 2 Kings 14-20 and 2 Chronicles 26-32. Not going to read all of that to you this morning. But go and study that for the background. Jeroboam here is mentioned as the king in Israel. This, if you look at history, is Jeroboam II. Jeroboam I, because there are two Jeroboams, that's why one is the first and one is the second. Jeroboam I ruled as the nation split. He was the first king of the northern kingdom in 930 BC. And Jeroboam II was not his son. He was just another king later in time, about 140 years later, that was also named Jeroboam. So to differentiate between the two historically, we call them Jeroboam I and Jeroboam II. The text tells us here that Jeroboam II here, he is the son of Joash. He began to reign in 793 BC, again 140 years after the civil war. And Jeroboam I, as the nation split, he reacted to the fact that Judah got Jerusalem. Now if Judah in the south gets Jerusalem, what does that mean Judah has in Jerusalem? The temple. What was the only place that you could go and worship God rightly? The temple. So Jeroboam had a conundrum on his hands. And so he immediately corrupted worship and began setting up golden calves around several places in Samaria. And this was the beginning of the idolatry, the false worship in the north. It was perpetuated, it was made worse by the kings that followed Him, and it was ultimately the reason for their judgment. In fact, out of 19 kings who reigned in Israel to the north, after the kingdom was divided, God says of all but one of them that they did evil in His sight. And we might think, yea for that one. No, not yea for that one. That one was Jehu. And while it doesn't say he did evil, it does say this, The Lord said to Jehu, Because you have done well in doing what is right in my sight, and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in my heart, your son shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, for he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, who had made Israel sin. So even though Jehu wasn't told directly by God that he did evil, he still rejected God even after God used him to depose Ahab and to destroy Ahab's descendants. We'll talk about that more in a minute. But as a result, we find out that all 19 kings of the north were wicked kings. So we look to Judah and we think, maybe things will be better. Even when we're talking about the people of God, Rulers appointed by God, most of them are wicked. There's only six kings who were told did what was right in the eyes of God in Judah, and the rest did evil. And note this, all of the kings in Judah were from David's line. In Israel, there's no family line. It's broken up, there's assassinations, captains become king, mothers put their sons on the throne, all these kinds of things happen and they're not all related. In Judah, they were all from the line of David. And in the list here in Hosea 1.1, we know that Uzziah, Jotham, and Hezekiah were three of the six godly kings. Concerning Ahaz, we're told in 2 Kings 16, 2, Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem, and he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God as his father David had done. In 2 Chronicles 28.19, the Scripture adds, "...for the Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had encouraged moral decline in Judah and had been continually unfaithful to the Lord." 2 Chronicles 28 verse 22, Now in the time of his distress, King Ahaz became increasingly unfaithful to the Lord. This is that King Ahaz. For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which had defeated him, saying, Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him and all of Israel. So Ahaz gathered the articles of the house of God, cut in pieces the articles of the house of God, shut up the doors of the house of the Lord, and made for himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem and in every city of Judah. He made high places to burn incense to other gods and provoke to anger the Lord God of his fathers." when his son Hezekiah became king. In 2 Chronicles 29.3 we read, "...in the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them." That's similar to what Josiah had to do also later, wasn't it? Repairing the temple. It had fallen into disrepair in the case of Ahaz and his son Hezekiah. Ahaz had cut the things up, had locked the doors, had barred the door, and Hezekiah repaired it. Josiah also had to repair it. And it was in that repairing that Josiah found and was brought to him the book of the law as that was read to him. And he was able to restore worship and eventually even the observance of the Passover. That was part of Josiah's reformation. But back to Jeroboam II. We know here, as king of Israel, he continued the pursuit of wickedness like all the kings of Israel. But while he reigned, the nation was at peace. There was peace and prosperity. The Bible proves for us, over and over and over again, that peace and prosperity in a nation do not mean God is showing favor. The country was descending into corruption and into wickedness. From the people's perspective, this was a good time in Israel's history. But if you look closer, if you look through the eyes of the prophets, if you read Amos and Micah and Isaiah, they show the seedy underside of what was going on. The injustice, the corruption throughout the religious and governmental leadership in the nation, the perversion of the courts, This was the case as we had studied it even in Zephaniah, the perversion of the courts where the rich were using the legal system to abuse the poor, to use them as cheap labor and to enslave people. The people of Israel at this point were seriously failing to obey the two greatest commandments. They were not loving God and they were not loving their neighbor as they should. The land was full of idolatry and injustice and irreverence. Those were the marks of the culture during the ministry of Hosea. That's what he was preaching against. And while things looked peaceful on the surface, Conditions were such that of the six kings in Israel that ruled after Jeroboam, now listen, after Jeroboam in this time of peace and supposed prosperity, within the span of 20 years after his reign, there were six kings that ruled and four of those became king by assassinating the guy who was king before them. And then in 722 BC, we know that Assyria finally conquered Israel and Israel never returned to the land. It looked good on the outside, but the land was corrupting and decaying. And Hosea warned the people, but they didn't listen. He has his life that was held up in front of them as an example, as a living parable, a picture of the dangers, of the cost of sin, of the power also of God's covenantal love. Because what we see is that as Hosea's wife, Gomer, She plays the part of Israel in this pageant. No one would say that she was innocent or not deserving of judgment, just as Israel had no defense against the charges that God was bringing against them through His prophets. And so as the curtain is raised, so to speak, let's meet Hosea's family. Let's meet this cast of characters. And we begin with his wife, again, as mentioned, named Gomer in Hosea 1, verses 2 and 3. 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 Deblame. From the start, God tells Hosea, as he marries this woman, that she's going to be unfaithful. After their marriage, after the birth of the first child we're going to see, the rest of their family life finds Hosea living in a marriage with an unfaithful spouse. After the first child is born, the other children are born as a result of her unfaithfulness, as the repercussions of her sin. Our text identifies her as the wife of harlotry. And again, that doesn't mean that she already was living that way, already living in immorality before Hosea married her. It's a reference, not to the present condition, but to a future condition. So Hosea married her knowing that at some point she was going to become unfaithful, that she was going to leave him to pursue other men. I can only imagine the questions that Hosea might have had or that he might have asked the Lord. We're not given any of that. He doesn't tell us about those discussions as he prayed and sought the Lord. But we do know that when the Lord told him to do this, he did this. He was obedient. He did exactly what God instructed him to do, and he married Gomer. Shortly thereafter we read, "...he conceived and bore him a son." Now there is a lesson for Israel and for us from the name that Hosea is told by the Lord to name his first son. In verses 4 and 5 it says, "...then the Lord said to him, Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will avenge 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." So this son's name, Jezreel, every time that it's said, it serves as a reminder for everybody who hears it, that God is going to judge His people for their sin. The reason for that is the name Jezreel means God will scatter. Jezreel also is the name of a place. You've probably heard of this place if you spent much time at all in the Old Testament. It is a valley, the Valley of Jezreel. It rests just south of Nazareth, and it's 10 miles east of another valley that everybody knows the name of. It's 10 miles east of the Valley of Megiddo. We all know what's going to happen to the Valley of Megiddo, right? In Hebrew, the place called Har Megiddon. We transliterate that Armageddon. But what about the Valley of Jezreel? Hosea's first child is named Jezreel to reference the fact that God will, He says, avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. Now we mentioned Jehu, we mentioned who Jehu, who he intervened with and actually wiped out all of his descendants. That was King Ahab. six kings before Jeroboam II, Ahab had ruled in Israel. And he was one of the more wicked of the wicked kings. Of course, you're probably all more familiar with his wife than with him. He married the daughter of the king of Tyre and Sidon, who was also a high priest of Baal. Her name, Jezebel, we say it Jezebel. She built a palace for 400 priests of Baal, who were later, by the way, confronted and killed by Elijah at Mount Carmel. And that's why Jezebel wanted to kill Elijah, and he ran and hid in the cave. In another episode, demonstrating their wickedness, Ahab decided that he wanted a piece of land. He was the king, and he saw a vineyard that he wanted for a garden, and it belonged to a man named Naboth. Ahab went to him and offered to give Naboth another plot of land to swap. He said, if you give me yours, I'll give you another plot that you can go and establish a new vineyard. Naboth refused. Ahab offered to buy it outright from him, to pay him an exorbitant price for it, and Naboth still said no. And so Ahab went home and whined and pouted about it. And seriously, that's exactly what he did. We read it in 1 Kings 21, "...Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you. So Ahab went into his house, sullen and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him. For he had said, I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers. And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food." He went home and pouted. He threw a fit. Of course, the story continues in verse 5. But Jezebel's wife came to him and said to him, why is your spirit so sullen that you eat no food? And when the king explained to the queen what the problem was, the queen immediately put a plan into motion. She right away said to him, you now exercise authority over Israel. Basically, she said, put your big boy king pants on. You're the king. Arise and eat food and let your heart be cheerful. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite." And so she wrote letters in Ahab's name, sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who were dwelling in the city with Naboth. She wrote in the letters saying, "'Proclaim a fast and seat Naboth with high honor among the people, and seat two men, scoundrels, before him to bear witness against him, saying, You have blasphemed God and the king. Then take him out and stone him that he may die.'" Not very subtle, but effective. Because after Ahab and Jezebel's scheme and the murder of Naboth came to pass, God told the prophet Elijah about it, and Elijah came and proclaimed a word from the Lord that Ahab was going to be judged, that he was going to die, that none of his descendants were going to sit on the throne after him, and not only was he going to die, this was just a glimpse of the depths of his wickedness as king that was revealed in this action, and the result was going to mean that the kingdom was going to be torn away from him and his family. And in the prophecy about his death, we also see that Jezebel was going to die, and the prophecy was that she was going to be eaten by dogs. Fulfilling the prophecy, Ahab died in battle. And then a captain of the army named Jehu, whom Elijah had sent a prophet to anoint with oil to be the next king, carried out the command of God to kill Ahab's son, and he threw his body in the field that had belonged to Naboth. When he then went to the valley of Jezreel where Jezebel was, he commanded her servants to throw her out the window and then he trampled her with his horse. When he came back later, after he ate, he went home and ate, he came back and he decided, well, she was a queen, we should bury her. All he could find was her skull and her palms and the bottom of her feet. The dogs had eaten all the rest. There was nothing left really to bury. And because of the continued sins of the people and the kings and the queens, because of the bloodshed that was brought about even by Jehu, even fulfilling God's judgment, God now says He's going to scatter His people. Now remember, Jezreel means to scatter. The word literally is a reference to flipping your hand out. The positive side would be as if you were sowing seed. The negative is you're throwing something away, you're casting it away from you. And so this is Hosea's first child, his firstborn son. His name is God will scatter. Jezreel, a constant reminder to the people of Israel's wickedness and to the certainty of the coming judgment at God's hand. Verse 5 says, "...it shall come to pass in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." And this is a reference to a military defeat, the breaking of a bow, the bow of Israel, their army was going to be crushed. Well, guess where Assyria finally defeated the armies of Israel before they conquered the territory? In the valley of Jezreel. That's where the Assyrians came to gain entrance to the capital in Samaria. They took the people into captivity, and they relocated people. This is interesting. They didn't just take people out. Assyria brought people back in. They brought other people they conquered from other territories, and people from back home at the capital of Assyria, Nineveh, and other places, and they put them in the land to tend and to care for the land, to get fruit from the land, to be taxed off the land, to support Assyria. So they took the Jews out, put all these foreigners in, These foreigners then began to intermarry with the few of Israel that were left, that weren't taken into captivity, and their descendants who lived in the region of Samaria were known in Jesus' day as Samaritans. That was the basis, not the justification for, but the basis for the ethnic hatred that the Jews held toward the Samaritans. In verse 6 then, we meet Gomer's second child, her daughter. And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him, Call her name Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. I say Gomer's second child because this child is not Hosea's. In fact, the text is specific. The son Jezreel, we're told back earlier, that she conceived and bore him a son. Now the second child, we're told, was Gomer's child. At some point after the birth of Jezreel, Gomer became unfaithful. She fulfilled what God had said she would do. She went into a life of prostitution. And the second child, this daughter, we just read that God told Hosea to name her. She was named Lo-Ruhamah. Her name means, no mercy. Can you imagine these names? Who's your brother? God will scatter. Who's your sister? No mercy. These were their names. God is declaring here, by the way, that there now is a limit to His mercy. Think about that. At some point, His mercy is going to stop and judgment is going to come. He says there, "...I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away." In verse 7, He says, "...Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by the bow, nor by sword, or battle, by horses or horsemen." As Assyria came and conquered Israel. They were prepared to move south and take Judah next. They established themselves in Samaria, and 20 years later, in 701 BC, the leader of the Assyrian army, the leader of Assyria, Sennacherib, marched toward Jerusalem. This was when Hezekiah was king, and he cried out to the Lord for help. He prayed for deliverance. In 2 Kings, we read his prayer, 2 Kings 19.15-19, O Lord God of Israel, the one who dwells between the cherubim, you are God, you alone of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see, and hear the words of Sennacherib. which He has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. Now therefore, O Lord our God, I pray, save us from His hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord God, You alone." You can also read the account in Isaiah 37, because Isaiah was ministering to Hezekiah during this point in history. And through Isaiah, in 2 Kings 19, the Lord gives Hezekiah some assurance. Isaiah, the son of Amoz, said to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, I have heard. He goes on later, "...therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor build a siege mount against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and he shall not come into this city, says the Lord. For I will defend this city, to save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake." And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord went out and killed in the camp of the Assyrians 185,000. And when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses all dead. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Chorazor struck him down with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then Ezradon, his son, reigned in his place." I'm familiar with the story. Nineveh came. Nineveh sent Sennacherib to go to attack, and as he was there planning to take Judah, God intervened. An angel of the Lord killed 185,000 of the Assyrian men. Sennacherib went home in defeat, and the first place he went when he got home was the temple of the God that he worshipped, to ask why all this happened, and to ask for help in battle. You see, this was the first time that Assyria met somebody and lost. They went wherever they wanted to go. They were the dominant military power in the world at this time, and if they wanted you, they were coming to take you. It was just a matter of how long it took them to get there and defeat you. And they would burn you out, they would starve you out. They were going to capture you if they were coming. And Hezekiah knew this, and he knew that the only help was going to be the Lord. And God did intervene. He protected the city. Sennacherib went back, and while he was worshiping his false god, he was assassinated by his own sons. Assyria had been stopped. That was God's mercy toward Judah that we just read about. While Israel was shown no mercy when the Assyrians came and attacked. How bad does it have to be for God's mercy to run out? The truth is, it doesn't run out, does it? But it does stop. A lot of people today live like God's mercy is inexhaustible. Because we're told, and we preach, His mercy endures forever. We're told that His mercy is new every morning. But there are also limits according to His holiness and His will. And the people of Israel were being warned by the name of this little girl, Lo-Ruhamah, no mercy. There is about to be a time where there will be no more mercy. The people will no longer be pitied by God. Judgment, unabated judgment was about to pour down on them. And we do have further evidence that this was not Hosea's daughter, even though he didn't name her, and even though he cared for her as if she was. Because later in Hosea 2.4, We find God saying, I will not have mercy on her children, for they are the children of harlotry. And we just read that and we think that's just a statement, but it's actually a play on names. It doesn't reference all three children, but two of the children that Gomer has are referenced in this statement. It's a play on words, a play on their names. The first is Lo-Ruhamah, I will have no mercy. God says, I will not have mercy on her children. And the third child that we're about to meet is the next son, a son named Lo-Ami. His name means, not my people or not my children. They are the children of harlotry, God says, not mine. So there we have, I will not have mercy on her children, for they are the children of harlotry, for their mother has played the harlot. She who conceived them has behaved shamefully. Their names even reveal that they are not Hosea's. And yet he is told by God to name them, and he behaves as a father to them. Verse 8 introduces us to this third child. Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then God said, Call his name Lo-Ami, 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." So here's another child born out of her unfaithfulness, and God instructs Hosea to name him And again, we see Hosea's faithfulness in the face of Gomer's unfaithfulness. The progression of judgment seen in the names of these children is that God first is going to scatter, then He's not going to show any more mercy, and finally God will declare that these people are no longer His people. God will disown Israel because of their spiritual adultery, because of their unfaithfulness. This mirrors Romans 9. In Romans 9, 25 and 26, there we see Paul quotes Hosea as he says also in Hosea, "...I will call them My people who were not My people, and her beloved who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, You are not My people, there they shall be called sons of the living God." Even as Israel rejected the Messiah and the gospel was then sent to be proclaimed to the Gentiles, to the nations, you see, even then there's hope for the restoration of Israel, for those who were disowned to be brought back in. Paul continues by quoting Isaiah in Romans 9, 27-28, Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved, for he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth. Finishing chapter 1 then of Hosea, we read, "...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." Hosea, as we're going to learn in the next few weeks, provides an example of what it looks like in everyday life to be committed to doing the things of God, and doing things God's way, not our own way. He's going to continue to love Gomer. He's going to continue to provide for Gomer, even in her unfaithfulness. Thinking about this and looking to apply this, when we look at this scenario, I imagine that the first thing that most people in the church today in America would tell Hosea if his wife left him and had two children by other men, you can hear the counsel offered, can't you? She's been unfaithful, you have biblical justification to divorce her. Just cut her off and let her go. Look at her unfaithfulness. But what does Hosea do? He loves his wife like God loves his bride. He loves Gomer like God loves the church. Jesus will never leave us or forsake us for any reason. The truth is, John MacArthur said it, if we could lose our salvation, we would. But we're His. We will remain His forever. And if and when we sin as His children, when we confess, He forgives us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. If and when we are unfaithful, He remains faithful. It's because of who He is. It's because of His nature. Nothing can separate us from the love of God given to us in Christ. Nothing. And in this living parable, where Hosea could have easily walked away from it all, instead he named, and by naming was showing that he was embracing these children as if they were his own. And he cared for them even while Gomer continued to pursue other men, and even to the point that we're going to learn that she was taken captive and sold as a slave. She was put for sale in the slave market. Hosea certainly could have let her go. He could have said, she is reaping the consequences of her sin. This is what she showed. This is what she's going to reap. Just let her go. Let her pay for her own sin. But instead, he stands as a picture of God's love for His people. And even as the people are being judged for their sins and taken into captivity, God is still proclaiming through the prophets to them, repent and return to Me, and I will return to you. And while you are not My people, you will be My people again. The name of these children serve as a warning of judgment. As we're going to see later, they also serve as a promise, because God gets pretty good at reversing names, doesn't He? We even read it in verse 10. 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. And then in chapter 2 verse 1, Say to your brethren, My people, and to your sisters, Mercy is shown. The curse will be reversed. That's the message of hope even in the message of judgment. That's the same as the original curse for sin, isn't it? In Genesis 3.15, I will put enmity between you and the woman speaking to the serpent as he was cursed, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. You see, God here is promising through Hosea to keep the covenant with Abraham. Remember he told Abraham that he would make his descendants as many as the sands of the sea? Not literally. That's simply meaning they're innumerable. And the good news is that we're included in that number. Do you realize that? Paul tells us that we're descendants of Abraham by faith. Romans 9, 6-8, "...For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children, because they are the seed of Abraham. But in Isaac your seed shall be called. That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as seed." Romans 4 goes on for the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Therefore it is a faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of faith, the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations in the presence of him whom he believed, God who gives life to the dead. and calls those things which do not exist as though they did." This is the good news. So often, we have to admit, so often we think that there are so few people who believe and follow Jesus. But the Bible just told us, God just told us that His children are innumerable. From our perspective, we would never be able to count them all. God here is assuring the people that He will honor His covenant with Abraham, even as there are threats of judgment, even as there are threats of being scattered, even as He's saying that mercy is drying up and is about to be cut off, even as He says that the people for a time are going to be disowned. With all of this, there comes a promise that God will remain faithful even when and especially when His people are not faithful. Think about the sins of Israel here. They had other gods that they were worshiping. You shall have no other gods before me. They had set up idols and images. You shall make no graven image. They were taking God's name in vain. They were defiling worship to the point that Amos says that God hates their worship, their praise, and their feasting. They're defaming the Sabbath. In every way they're breaking the commandments of God. The first tablet of the law, the first four of the ten. They are breaking them daily, living in direct opposition and in rebellion to God's law. And at some point then verse 11 tells us that Israel will be unified and they'll have one head. Well, who can this be? That answer should be obvious. What is the Sunday school answer? If you don't know the answer, say Jesus. It's probably right. In this case it is. Who is the one head that's going to unite the two? It is the Messiah. What does Paul say about Israel when Christ returns? Romans 11, 26, "...and so all Israel will be saved. As it is written, the Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob, for this is My covenant with them when I take away their sins. In fact, when Hosea says, And they shall come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel." The phrase here, for coming up out of the land, it's a reference to the same word that was used for Jezreel, to scatter. Remember, it means to flip the hand. And it means to throw something away or to sow the seed. God just said He's going to turn it around so that you're not being thrown away, but seed is being sown that is going to bear fruit and going to grow. What is that seed? It is the Word of God. It is the gospel. It's going to take root in Israel and all Israel is going to be saved. Now, the people were hearing and they were seeing a message here. You've been unfaithful. You've committed spiritual adultery. You've broken the covenant. But look at God. Look at the picture of God that's seen in Hosea. God says He will keep His covenant promises. He says, "'Say to your brethren, My people, and to your sisters, Mercy is shown.'" We see a reversal of the meaning of their names. Where does this remnant come from? Where are they regathered from? These are those who hear the call and obey the gospel, who are members not of the old covenant that has failed, but of the new covenant that Christ has kept on our behalf. Just as with Israel, so it is with us. There was a time when we were children of wrath with no mercy. There was a time when we were not His people. We read it in the book of Acts this morning, in Acts chapter 2, when the people said, what should we do? God said, I sent the Messiah to you and you killed him. Peter preached it. What did the people say? What do we do? What did Peter say? Repent, let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ because of the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God. will call." In Ephesians 2 we also read, "...therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who were called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." He goes on there in Ephesians 2 and he says, "...we were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works, and the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." But what started that verse? Before we are told that we are dead in trespasses and sins, that we were walking according to the course of this world, that we were under the influence of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience." Before this, what does he say? He says, "...now you He made alive." God is making a point with the family of Hosea, but that point goes beyond judgment coming at the hands of the Assyrians. It's a point that's found even in the prophet's name. The real point of this story is salvation. Hosea, Yeshua, it is Jesus. In light of the consequences for sin, there is the hope of salvation. His name is salvation. His name is Jesus. Let's pray together. Father, we do thank You for Your Word this morning, for this pageant that is being unfolded before us. Father, as we study Hosea and his family and his prophecy to your people, I pray that you would make us aware of our unfaithfulness, that you would restore our hope in your power to save, that you would renew us by the Spirit so that we would walk in victory as overcomers, as more than conquerors. Father, remind us all that you've given to us in Christ. As bad as the story seems to be, with a faithful husband and an unfaithful wife, children born in unfaithfulness, yet in all of that we see behind it all a sovereign, loving, gracious, merciful God who is working all of these things to proclaim that it is as we bow to the name of Jesus, as we confess that He is Lord, as we call out to the Lord that You save us from all that we are, from all that we're faced with, for all that we're threatened without You. Father, this morning, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your mercy. We thank you for salvation. This morning, we thank you for Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen. This message by Pastor Philip M. Way has been presented by Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Marble Falls, Texas. Please feel free to contact us by telephone at 512-577-8433 or send your questions, comments and prayer request to us by mail at providencereformedbaptistchurch Post Office Box 1495, Marble Falls, Texas 78654 or by visiting us online at www.providencerbc.org. Thank you for joining us as we have spent this time in the words.