Well, I'm going to be doing something entirely against my nature, that is to skim over things. But I think I did say two messages for the longer books and one for the shorter one. Hosea, the first of the twelve minor prophets. As we begin our study of this book, you will remember that in the introductory message, I told you about the northern and the southern kingdoms. The northern kingdom had its capital city, Samaria, and it is to this kingdom that this book is addressed. Now, the name Hosea means salvation. His name is what God wanted to proclaim to this wayward nation. They needed salvation. Hosea was a contemporary of Isaiah, but Isaiah lived in Jerusalem and addressed most of his writings to Judah. whereas Hosea prophesied to the northern kingdom called Israel or Ephraim. He was born during the years of Amos when Amos prophesied and probably began his ministry as the years of Amos came to a close. Possibly he learned a lot from Amos about the work of a prophet, but we do have very little information about this man other than what is given to us in this book. This book begins with the words, the word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Biri. So as I mentioned, we know very little about this man, but we do know that he was the son of Biri. When the word of the Lord came to a man, that man had the task of conveying that word to the people. It was often an exceedingly difficult task. And in verse 1, we are next told that his ministry took place in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah. These are kings of Judah, the southern kingdom, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, the northern kingdom. This book, unlike some others, gives us the names of the kings that reigned during the Prophet's ministry, and this is very helpful in determining when the book was written. Four kings of the Northern Kingdom ruled during Hosea's ministry. But Hosea prophesied to the Northern Kingdom, and he mentions only one king, though there were several more that reigned. That means that Hosea's ministry began sometime before 747 BC, 747 years before Christ. Saul, the first king of Israel, began to reign about 1060 BC. So the kings have been in power now for just over 300 years. Now it may be questioned why Hosea mentions only one king of the Northern Kingdom. when he reigned during the reign of several others as well. And I think that Hosea does that in order to show that he prophesied before the events he prophesied took place. He prophesied them in the days of Jeroboam before these events took place. They took place during some of the other kings, which people would then have said, ah, yeah, he wrote stuff after the fact and said it was prophecy. So let me liken Israel in Hosea's day to the United States of America of today. In Hosea's day, the Northern Kingdom had existed approximately 180 years. The United States is now 45 years older than that. The Northern Kingdom in Hosea's day was in tremendous prosperity. The United States has now been for numerous years in tremendous prosperity. The moral decline of Israel was steadily on the increase. According to Chuck Missler, these are the things that were happening in Israel. Listen to this. This is back then. There was widespread adultery. Sound familiar? Widespread adultery, all kinds of social injustice, violent crimes. I understand in New York there are more crimes than in England and several other countries put together. Violent crimes, religious hypocrisy. Let's speak of the United States of America. Brian McLaren marrying his son to a man. Political rebellion, selfish arrogance, spiritual ingratitude. Talk about America today. And the prophets were sounding warning after warning to Israel. Now that list I read of the Northern Kingdom holds true in every part for America today. And in America, the economists, prophets, have been warning for a long time. You've heard them. And in America, preachers have been warning about the spiritual decline for many years now. Billy Graham, not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination, said many years ago, if God does not judge America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. In today's America, homosexuality is not a sin. It is an alternative lifestyle. I can't believe where we are. In the churches, Mennonite churches are there. We do not even allow our children to grow old enough to offer them to Malak on the fire. We kill them before they ever get there. Thousands upon thousands of them every year. Covenants in marriage are meaningless and we thus come under the major sin of covenant breakers. I mentioned last time. Sin is rampant on every hand and protected by law. The leaders of the land often live in deep sin and that with impunity. One of the last presidents of the United States of America. The likenesses between America And our world and Hosea's day are striking. In the days of Jeroboam, as far as the people were concerned, there was not a cloud in the sky. It was health, wealth, and prosperity. It could not have been more like our day. Freeman says, the moral condition of Israel, as evidenced by historical books, as well as the prophecy itself, was exceedingly corrupt. The priest, instead of leading the people into righteous living, Brian McLaren, Encourage them in their sins. 4, 6 through 9, 5, 1 and 6, 9. In America, many Christian institutions and pastors are now also encouraging people in their sins. Divorce and remarriage has been there a long time already. We've grown used to it. The kings set an example of drunkenness and debauchery, chapter seven, three through five. The people confounded the worship of Yahweh with Baal, while calf worship was prevalent on every hand. The nation rejected God and trusted in foreign alliances, chapter eight, verses nine through 10 from Freeman. And when our text says, Hosea began to prophesy in the days of Jeroboam, the message is that he warned them in the days of their wealth, when all looked like it would continue this way forever. So turn to Ezekiel chapter 16 for just one moment. Describing both Israel in Hosea's day and our own day. Ezekiel chapter 16. verse 49. Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. She and her daughter had pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness. How does that sound? So that in verse one, the introduction to the book of Hosea, it is like a book written to America or Canada, a time of great wealth and a time of tremendous moral decline. I cannot believe that we have a prime minister like Prime Minister Harper, a true statesman. Unless history lies, it won't last. Now in my outline of the book, which I did probably almost 20 years ago, I outlined this book as giving two messages, and both are about the chesed love of God. In both messages, the Prophet gives first a picture of God's steadfast love, and then a proclamation of that love. And in both the picture and the proclamation, which occurred twice, the prophet gives first the blight and then the blessing. You see, we think the prophets are all gloom and doom, but every one of these ends with the light side of the story. So for every negative, there is a positive, and the positive happens last. And this morning, we will consider Hosea's first message. It covers from 1-2 through 2-23. By the way, let me mention that the book of Hosea is quoted about 10 times in the New Testament. So we want to look at a picture of God's steadfast love, and we're looking at the blight part 1, chapter 1, verses 1 through 9. I hope you got the outlines. I had forgotten to put them out, understand that they were handed out. We begin with a very hard command given by God to Hosea in verse 2. 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 sin. This is the picture. It's in picture form. And here's the question. Here's the question for the Bible student. Did he take a wife who was a prostitute? Or was this all an allegory or a vision? Or did he pretend this of his own proper wife and he gave her the character of such a woman? Well, some take the view, every one of these views are held by Bible teachers, and some take the view that he took a woman who later became a prostitute. Others argue that it was not allowed an Israelite to marry a harlot, but that was only forbidden to the high priest. It is my view that it is best to take the text as it stands. Here was a godly man I suppose that he was known for his godliness and then he is instructed to go to an unthinkable place to marry an unthinkable woman for a godly man and if I am correct in taking such a woman he as prophet will have felt the very pain God himself felt about his nation When God took Israel, she too had come out of idolatry, the sin to which prostitution is likened in our book. Furthermore, he is to take a woman who would bear him children of harlotry. Again, this is difficult. Does she bear him children from other men? And again, I think that is the case. He got married and had a child that was from another man. That's what happens when you marry a woman like this. And the reason God gives for placing... See, this is the picture. The reason God gives for placing such a terrible burden on the prophet is that Israel has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord. So Israel is both a harlot and she was bearing children from other gods than Jehovah God. Remember that Israel is viewed in the Old Testament always as the wife of God. So Hosea, this godly man, finds an impure woman by name of Gomer. The name Gomer signifies perfection or completion in the passive sense. She was complete in her sinfulness or had gone to the farthest length possible according to Kyle and Dillich. One can hardly bear with this godly man as he hurts so deeply to be required to do something so horrifying for the sake of his fellow failing sinning Jews, but he doesn't. And she conceived and bore him a son, though from a different man. And the Lord instructs Hosea to call this son Jezreel." This is the picture. Let me explain this briefly. King Ahab wanted a certain vineyard from a man that would not sell it to him. Who's read this story? How many read this story? You need to read the story. This man wouldn't sell it. He's a king, man wouldn't sell it to him. But he pouted, you know, he went and cried. The king and his wicked wife Jezebel, a Canaanite woman. Huh, that's what happens when you marry outside the faith. Canaanite woman of Phoenician background, a woman forbidden the Jews to marry, had the innocent owner of the vineyard killed and she gave it to her husband. That was a long time before this prophecy. God never forgot Listen, when we don't repent, God never forgets. And in this first son of Hosea, God remembers, God had told Ahab through a prophet what would happen, and Ahab repented, and then God said, I will do it later. I will do it later. Now in this sun is the prophecy of that later. The name Jezreel means sown or scattered. This is how they sowed their fields. Scattered. And it pictures that Israel will be sown in the world or scattered into the world. If you heard Benjamin Netanyahu's speech in the United Nations the other day, he said we have gathered in the exile. Incredible! incredible fulfillment of prophecy this is the scattering the gathering is happening right now right this very moment Israel is now taking in they have made an agreement from Ethiopia black Jews so many year every year they already had operation Solomon where they brought in thousands of these Ethiopian Jews they found they found a tribe of Israel in India East Indians and they bring them back to Israel in gathering of the nation But this name Jezreel may have been chosen not only for its meaning, but because of all the iniquities committed in Jezreel by Jehu. Kalam Dileesh say that with the name of the first child, Jezreel, the prophet had, as it were, with a single stroke set before the king and the kingdom, generally the destruction that awaited them. This is what's going to happen. So look at the prophecy of verses 4 through 5. Then the Lord said to him, call him 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 bowl in the valley of Israel, in the valley of Jezreel. At the time this is written, it is at least 747 BC. That is 25 plus years before this prophecy was fulfilled. It happened 25 some years later. In 722, here's a date for you to remember, the Northern Kingdom came to an end in 722 BC. In 722 BC, the northern kingdom to which Hosea prophesied, the Assyrians came, took Israel captive, took them away, and the horrors of that captivity are indescribable. If you read about the Holocaust, when six million Jews were killed, that's the kind of horrors that took place at this time. If Israel had only heeded the cry of the prophets, it would not have happened. If America today would listen to the faithful preachers, it wouldn't happen. Unless we're too late now. In verse 5, God said He would break the bow, speaking of the military force of Israel, in the valley of Jezreel. It was in the valley of Jezreel that Israel's little kingdom came to an end. Hosea lived to see the fulfillment of this prophecy. He had said it would happen. He saw it happen. Well, Gomer conceived again. You see, this is the picture. This time it was a daughter, and God said He was to call her Lo-Ruhemah. So, look at verse 6, chapter 1. And she conceived again, and bore a daughter. Then God said to him, Call her name Lo-Ruhemah, for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. It is too late. Now the Hebrew word for mercy is Ruhemah. And Lo means no. So this young lady is called Lo-Ruhamah. No mercy. No mercy. Every time he calls his children. Hey, Jezreel. Every time they remind Lo-Ruhamah. Every time they call these children by name, here's the message. No mercy. Uncompassionated. No compassion. If you want to read of uncompassionated, no compassion, read of Israel's Holocaust under Hitler. You will see it in its finest form. No mercy. This past year, Dr. David Reagan wrote a little booklet called A Prophetic Manifesto. We need to get it for the church, my wife said. Here are the first words in his booklet. America is finished. It's too late. If you picked up the prophecy thing from one of the speakers we had here a while ago, just the other day, he talked about Amos and the message was, it's too late. It is too late. Dr. David Reagan says, we have passed the point of no return. It is too late. Now, there is a Psalm that says, God's mercy endures forever. Psalm 136 has 26 verses and 26 times it says, God's mercy endures forever. But I want to tell you something, I believe. God's mercy, like His love, is conditional. It is conditional. Unconditional love is unbiblical. I want to preach about that sometime. If you study the Bible, God's mercy is extended to those who love Him and keep His commandments. And though God would no longer have mercy, lo ruchamah, on the northern kingdom, look at verse 7. Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, will save them by the Lord their God. You know what? He had mercy on them for another 140 some years. Till they sinned, until there was no more mercy. 586 B.C. The southern kingdom had not yet departed from God to the extent that the northern kingdom had and therefore God still had mercy on it. Later when Judah faced this very same army that destroyed Israel, God delivered them. You can read all of this in 1 Kings chapter 19. Now let me here take a moment to warn sinners. There comes a time for individuals as well as nations When there is no more mercy. Today is the day of salvation. Am I right? Are you here this morning? And you are not saved tomorrow. Tonight you may be burning in hell. I'm not telling you nonsense here. This is life. Tomorrow you may burn in hell. No, no ever-coming, no mercy, no Ruhamah. Forever, forever. It's a warning this morning for anyone. And so we go to verses 8 through 11. Now, when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son, and then God said, Call his name Lo-Ammi, 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 will be said to them, you are the sons of the living God. Then the children of Israel, 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. So to say to my people, to my brethren, to your brethren, my people, and to your sisters, mercy is shown. Gomer's second son and third child after marriage to Hosea is to be called Lo-Ammi. Ammi means my people. Lo means not my people. The message to Israel in this son is for you are not my people and I will not be your God. May I remind us all here that if we do not make God our God by repentance and faith, He is not our God. Do you know how many people say, our Father which art in heaven is not their Father? They are of their Father the devil. You're not saved this morning, you are of your Father the devil. You must go to the place He goes. But here is the message today, there is still mercy. Today there is still mercy. You can cry out to Him today and be saved. Now let me remind us one more of the time in which Hosea is prophesying all this. It is a time, like the time we are in right at this very moment. Everything is good. We are drunk with riches. Lucrete is drunk with riches. You don't believe that? Wait till the Heliodale and watch the campers go out. We are drunk with riches. I trust we are not poor in spirit. Israel thought all was well because of how they were prospering. But the clouds on the horizon were getting darker and darker. But surely they will blow over. We don't want to hear a message like this. We don't want to hear. Go away, prophet. Well, there is the blessing, and I read some of that already, verses 10 through chapter 2, verse 1. You see, the prophets are not all gloom and doom, as we have said in the first message. Cohen and Vandermeer, in their commentary on this book, say, between verses 9 and 10 lie volumes of Jewish history that fulfill the judgment of Jezreel. Verse 9 was prophetic at the time it was written, but it was fulfilled between 20 and 30 years later, but verses 10 and 11 have never been fulfilled yet. Do you remember that in the first message I told you that there is this telescopic prosophecy? That's what we have right here. Between these verses lie over 2,700 years. But verses 10 and 11 haven't been fulfilled and someday Jeremiah 31, 18 through 20 will go into fulfillment which says, I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself. This is what Ephraim says, you have chastised me and I was chastised like an untrained bull. Restore me and I will return to you. between Benjamin Netanyahu's speech the other day, and this is not much time. It will happen soon. They will say, restore me. and I will return, for you are the Lord my God. Surely after my turning I repented, and after I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even humiliated, because I bore the reproach of my youth." We have that here. Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my pleasant child? Still quoting from Jeremiah. For though I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him. I saw this on Benjamin Netanyahu's speech the other day. God yearns for them. And when that happens, verses 1, chapter 1, verse 10 through 2, 1 will be fulfilled. Cohen and Vandermeer go on to say that six specific blessings may be seen in the following verses. There will be national increase, verse 10, first part. spiritual awakening, verse 10, second part, national reunion, verse 11, first part, messianic leadership, 11, second part, victory over the foes, 11, the third part, and complete restoration of the covenant relationship, chapter 2, verse 1. It's coming. It's coming. It's very near. They will have one head, and that one head will be Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. Then they will be Ruhmah and Ammi. God will have mercy on His people. Well, we got to go to message number 2, chapter 2, verses 2 through 13, is the blight part. We have had the picture of Israel's idolatry graphically displayed. Now will come the message in words that apply to that picture. This is the proclamation. And in 2A we have the reason for the charge God is bringing against Israel. Look at chapter 2, the first part. Bring charges against your mother. Bring charges for she is not my wife, nor am I her husband. Israel has become a harlot and in 2B comes the divine exhortation, look at the last part of verse 2, let her put away her harlotries from her sight and her adulteries from between her breasts. When God exposes, He seeks repentance. When the message is preached in the church, God speaks to my heart, He is seeking a change in my heart. I don't just try to get out of here so I can get away from this conviction. He wants me to change so that the conviction doesn't come when that is preached. We like to leave the place and have the conviction go away. Now here, there is a danger to failing to repent. It is not different for us today than it was for Israel of old. We find the danger in verse 3, look at it. Lest I strip her naked and expose her as in the day she was born and make her like a wilderness and set her like a dry land and slay her with thirst. Now notice verses 4 and 5. 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. For she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink. Here is a word to parents. We cannot live in sin without it affecting our children. Did you get the word? Parent. We cannot live in sin without it affecting our children. Many, many children suffer for their parents' sin. In this case, it is just the mother, and her sins extend far beyond herself. In the Bible, the picture of the relationship between God and Israel is that of marriage. God is the husband, Israel is the wife, and Israel continually played the harlot. The far-reaching consequences of the sinning mother's actions are here clearly pictured, and God says she will be disciplined. and Hitler was one of the instruments God used. Just never say, they had it coming. And God now shows what will happen in verses 6 through 13. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns and wall her in so that she cannot find her paths. She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them. Yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now. For she did not know that I gave her grain, new wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Therefore I will return and take away my grain in its time, my new wine in its season, will take back my wool and my linen given to cover her nakedness. Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall deliver her from my hand. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her first feast days, her new moons, her Sabbaths, all her appointed feasts, and I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she has said, these are my wages that my lovers have given me. So I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. I will punish her for the days of the bales, to which she burned incense. She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry and went after her lovers. But me, she forgot, says the Lord. First, God said He would hedge up their way with thorns. They would run after their sinful desires. God would confuse their ways. Israel would seek her fulfillment in the ways of worship of other nations, but she would not be satisfied. And when He hedged her up like this long enough, she would then realize how good she had had it when she lived in obedience to God. She had been blessed once, she had been rich, but she had been forgotten, or she had forgotten where those blessings came from. And now she would learn all about that. Let me just say this. Today, Israel is still learning. But I can tell you this. Israel is already back in the land. We have lived to see that day. We are in an incredible day. Verses 6 through 8 indicate how when she is in darkness, she will reconsider God. In verses 9 and 10, God says he will take away his blessing on the grain and the fruit produce of the land. When Mark Twain went there in the 1800s, it was like that. You can read what Mark Twain said, what a God-forsaken piece of ground this is. Today, that has changed. It is amazing what it is like when that happens and the other nations after whom she is longing will see her in her lack of clothing and no one will deliver her. By the way, have you watched any of the Holocaust videos where Israel tried to get into this land, get into that land and they wouldn't let them in? Here we are. God said it would be. Then the Lord would take away all her joy, the feast seasons that were so rich in laughter and joy, and would come to cease. Instead of laughter, it would be a dirge, verses 9-11. And last, in 12-13, Israel will learn, but only through very hard lessons. Her harlotry must be expelled in order to bring her back. She will learn through suffering. In the introductory message, I mentioned that the prophets are not all gloom and doom, and when Israel returns to the Lord, blessing will follow. And I must quickly do that. Chapter 2, verses 14 through 23 deal with that. The book of Hosea was written according to Charles Ryrie in 710 BC. That is a mere 12 years before Assyria came and took them captive. That's a date to remember, 722 BC. And between the time that this prophecy took place and until the fulfillment described in the blessing which follows, there will be 2700 years. We are there. At the end of those 2700 years, we think we are ending that time. So when we go to verse 14, we move to the time of Israel's blessing. Verse 14, therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness and speak comfort to her. Let me mention that many of the things that have to happen before the blessing can take place are happening in our very day. Since 1948 they have been happening. They are still in the progress of happening. So in verses 14 through 15, Israel is restored to her land. This has already... Look at it, 14 and 15. I will allure her and bring her back into the wilderness and speak comfort to her. I will give her her vineyards from there and the valley of Acre as a door of hope. She shall sing there as in the days of her youth, as in the days when she came up from the land of Egypt. So this is already happening in verses 16 through 17. She is restored to God. That has not yet happened. Then she will be restored to peace with creation. You know what that is? Tell me what is it? the millennium. Romans chapter 8 talks about it. Then the marriage relationship between God and Israel will be restored, verses 19 through 20. This has not yet happened. Then God will restore his blessing of the work of their hands, verses 21 through 22. Let me just read those verses. The earth shall answer with grain, with new wine, and with oil. They shall answer Jezreel. Then I will sow her for myself in the earth. And I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy. And then I will say to those who were not my people, you are my people. And they shall say, you are my God. That's the fulfillment. Amen. My people. So we have had the picture and the proclamation of God's Chesed, the Hebrew word for His unfailing love for Israel. In the picture, Hosea married an impure woman. She was unfaithful both before and after her marriage to Hosea, brought forth children that were not her husband's. That's the picture of Israel. God took her out of an idolatrous situation, married her, and she became unfaithful once more and brought forth that which came from other gods. That was their blight, but God loved her so much that even then, in the blight, He sought to turn her back to Himself, and in the end, according to the promise of the Word of God, she will return." She is coming back. I appreciated what Benjamin Netanyahu said to the United Nations. Israel is not going away. They are not going away. Period. The Bible says so. She will return, but that has not yet happened. God scattered her among the nations. There he allowed her to be whipped again and again. Hitler's Holocaust was part of that whipping. Then he began to draw her back to the land of Israel. That is an ongoing process right to this very day. Even now, Israel is returning many black Ethiopian Jews to Israel every year. And here in this land, after years of heartache, Israel will turn back to Him. And that has not happened yet. In God's proclamation of His love for Israel, He tells how He fed her, clothed her, and cared for her. But she said, these other gods did that for me. And then when she needed her lover's help, the help of the other gods, they forsook her. Blind Israel. But God said, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness and speak comfort to her. And from there, he would return her to her land and once more bring the blessing of nature on her. And there he would once more betroth her and he would say to her, you are my people. and she will say, you are my God. Today, we stand within sight of the fulfillment of that prophecy. Incredible days. Well, may God bless these messages and help you to understand these books that you read through the Bible.