Let's turn your Bibles to the book of Hosea. Hosea chapter 1. Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea. Get into the minor prophets. If you're turning there, I might mention I've had opportunity to I listened this week to a more liberal pastor doing some research on a subject and he was coming under some attack from evangelical circles and so in his church he got up to defend the ministry of his church and wanted his people to know very clearly that in their church that they believe that the Word of God is inspired And of course, we believe that God's Word is inspired, but this pastor stops short of saying that in our church and his church, they believe that God's Word is inerrant. And this is part of the reason why this fellow is being criticized. And of course, we don't say this every week, and we don't need to say it every week, but we need to be very clear that we believe that God's Word is not only inspired, not only does it come from His mouth, but that it comes from His mouth and is preserved for us without error in His Word. And so it's a privilege for us to have God's Word inspired and inerrant to learn from. And may God accompany the reading of His Word with the power of His Spirit as it enters into our ears and into our hearts that we might learn from it. Hear God's Word. Hosea 1.1 through chapter 2, verse 1. The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Beri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, Go take yourself a wife of Harlotry. And children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblam, and she conceived and bore him a son. Then the Lord said to him, Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. It shall come to pass in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. And she conceived again. and bore a daughter. Then God said to him, Call her name Lo-Ruhamah. For I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword or battle, by horses or horsemen. And 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. And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together and appoint for themselves one head. And they shall come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brethren, my people, and to your sisters, mercy is shown. Some of you know, even before I say this, that Hosea is my favorite book of the Bible. I might be unique in our congregation in saying that, and I've liked the book of Hosea not just because it gives me justification for giving my children unique names, but for other reasons as well. This is a book that God has used constantly in my life, even from the time when I was about 15 years old. And so it's really a special book to me. And it's a book that uses a vivid illustration to describe the gospel. And Hosea is called by God to live out the gospel in a way that's very unique to Hosea, very painful, in many regards, to Hosea as he pictures God's love for a wayward people, for a wayward bride. And we are the bride of Christ, and yet we are the bride of Christ who continue to struggle with sin, continue to struggle with unfaithfulness to the Lord. And that's exactly what the book of Hosea describes to us in very vivid detail. We have here in the first chapter an introduction for us to the principal characters in the book, if you will. And if you want to think of it, it's kind of like we sing that song with our kids sometimes, The Farmer in the Dell. You play that game maybe in the elementary music class where everyone stands in a circle and the farmer gets to pick the wife, and the wife takes the child, and the child takes the dog, and the dog takes the cat, and the cat picks the mouse, and the mouse gets to pick the cheese, and that's the end. And we have a similar introduction here where we meet Hosea, we meet Hosea's wife, and then we meet their three children, the three children that are born to this family. And Hosea's life and his marriage to Gomer is an illustration to us of God's faithfulness to us. In spite of the fact that we are a wicked people, in spite of the fact that day after day, moment after moment, that we rebel against God, we go our own way, we have other first loves other than God, that God in His grace and love continues to love you and to pursue you. And even when we are unfaithful to the covenant, God is faithful to His covenant and faithful to do what He has promised He will do. And that's exactly where the book begins. It begins by telling us about this prophet, Hosea, who was called to picture God to a nation, to the nation of Israel. And he's called to do that in his marriage to an adulterous woman. We meet Hosea in verse 1, the word of the Lord that came to Hosea. And just for your understanding, Hosea is actually a derivative or a nickname, the same name basically as the name Joshua. And so those of you in our midst who have the name Joshua will want to make note of that. And sometimes in the book of Joshua, at least in some of the older translations, you'll come across the name that is named Hoshea, the son of Nun. Well, that's the similarity there. And it's a name that means that the Lord saves. Hosea, we find in verse one, ministered in a certain time period. And he ministered to the Northern Ten Tribes. He ministered to the, you'll remember of course, that after the reign of Solomon, that Solomon's son Rehoboam was unwise, and that the Northern Ten Tribes said, we don't want anything to do with your reign. And so Jeroboam led the Northern Ten Tribes off and into their own nation. They separated off. And so we read in verse 1, though, that the word of the Lord came to him in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. Now, this Jeroboam is not that Jeroboam, though. This Jeroboam is not the Jeroboam that ruled at the same time as Rehoboam. This is Jeroboam II. And if you turn your Bibles to 2 Kings 14, verse 23, we'll just read a little bit about Jeroboam II. 2 Kings 14 verse 23. It says, In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, became king in Samaria and reigned 41 years. And he did evil on the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sons of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin. He restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the sea of the Aravah, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he had spoken to his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, who was from Gath-Heper. For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, and whether bond or free, there was no helper for Israel. And the Lord did not say that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash." And it goes on, the rest of his acts how he made war, how he recaptured for Israel from Damascus and Hamath what had belonged to Judah. Are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel? So what was the character of this Jeroboam II? Well, he was wicked, just like all the northern ten kings. If you're ever trying to remember which ones were the good kings of the northern ten tribes, don't even bother. Because there are no good kings of the Northern Ten Tribes. They were all wicked. And yet, in spite of his wickedness, God has compassion on the children of Israel and says they're afflicted, they're in trouble, I will elevate them and I will allow Jeroboam, this wicked king, to bring a measure of relief and deliverance. And so, Jeroboam II's reign is actually the Golden Age, if you will, in the Northern Kingdom. It's some of the most prosperous times. The years of Ahab were also fairly prosperous in that era as well, but Jeroboam's prosperity perhaps even exceeds the prosperity of that era. And so this is one of the great eras in terms of prosperity in the Northern Tent Tribes. God has mercy on them in that way, and yet they continue to rebel against him, and we'll see more about that as we go along. Obviously, Hosea's peers in ministry, prophetic peers, include Jonah, Isaiah, and Micah are also from this era, although they were prophets in the Southern Kingdom while he was in the North. And God calls Hosea to be a prophet. The Word of the Lord comes to him. The Lord begins, verse 2, to speak by him. And the Lord calls Hosea right from the start to a difficult ministry. Hosea, when the Word of the Lord came to him, When he began, perhaps as a young man, to get a sense that God was going to call him to the ministry, he might have had some ideas of the kinds of messages that he would like to bring to the people of Israel. But the message that the Lord gave to him, when the word of the Lord came to him, it was a message of, go take yourself a wife of harlotry. And it was a difficult, message. Now, children, harlotry or harlots, it's a synonym for the word prostitute. And what this means is that God told Hosea, his servant, to go and marry a woman who would, for money, commit adultery with men. And so he was called to go and marry this woman who was unfaithful, who was already acting like she was married to all sorts of other men. And now he's to go and marry her. And also he can tell from the word of the Lord that she will do this again. that it's not only a sin in the rear view mirror where he can say, OK, that's part of your past, but I can forgive you and love you for that. It's going to be part of her present as well. And we're going to see that played out in the next few chapters of this book. And so Hosea has a rough start to his prophetic ministry. It's already hard. I mean, we've just completed a series right through the book of Jeremiah. and seen the difficulties of being a prophet of the Lord. And yet, Hosea is saddled with an additional difficulty as God calls him to marry this woman, Gomer. Now, when Hosea gets this message from the Lord, imagine what went through his mind. Don't you think he thought, really Lord? Is that? I mean, OK, so Lord, we have this nation that's committing adultery on you. It's not faithful to your covenant with them. Is it really the best solution for me to go and marry this woman? Isn't that just perpetuating the problem? Isn't that? How is this at all going to be part of the solution that this country needs? And in fact, he could have even questioned When this word comes from the Lord, is this really even from God? Because in Leviticus 21 verse 7, God makes clear that the priests are not to marry anyone who has as part of their past prostitution. So you might say, well, this is clearly not in accordance with the holiness and righteousness of God. And this is actually led scholars even even in recent years to wrestle with what's going on in the book of Hosea. Many people have said what Hosea is speaking here is more like a fairy tale. This is not reality because the Lord would never have given this command. He would have never called Hosea to marry this woman. And so we might question, well, is this morally right? Or maybe it's that Hosea was kind of like Samson, who had an interest in these prostitutes, and maybe he just came up with a story. And he just thought, well, I'll justify my attraction to Gomer by making up this account of this being the word of the Lord. So there are a number of fronts where we can ask, is this morally right? Well, the reality is that the scripture portrays quite clearly Hosea and Gomer as real people. There's nowhere else in scripture where people are given names and names of fathers in the way that both of them are listed with a genealogy, with a time period, that we would say is not a true historical account. And so for that reason, we believe that this is in fact true, but we're still left perhaps wrestling, you might say, well, still does that make it morally right? Well, the easy answer to that is the fact to realize what is Hosea picturing? In Hosea, if it is right, if it is righteous for God Almighty the righteous judge of the earth to enter into covenant with people who have cheated on him, who have slept around and who do sleep around with the world. If it's right for the Lord to do that. then it is okay for him to call his prophet Hosea to do the same thing. So if God does it and is righteous, he can call his prophet to do it as well. And so Hosea, believe it or not, knowing his wife's sexual history, knowing her sexual future, obeys the Lord and marries Gomer. and does what God calls him to do. Verse 3, so he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Gomer here is this woman of harlotry. And actually, we find when we're introduced to her, and especially there in verse 2, Four times we find the description of harlotry. Four times the word harlotry shows up in verse two. And I'm waiting for you to do a little whiplash at me and shake your heads and say, no, Pastor, there are three times when the word harlotry shows up. Yes, indeed. Go take a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry But the Hebrew is, for the land has committed harlotting, harlotry. It's got the Hebrew word back to back for special emphasis. It's like a harlot's harlotry. This is really bad harlotry that's going on in the nation. And so there's that emphasis there. God doesn't save the punchline here. Let's put this in the back pages of the book of Hosea right here at the start. were met with this description. And so, Hosea marries Gomer, who is a harlot, in order to illustrate Israel's unfaithfulness to God and in order to illustrate our unfaithfulness to God. And how we sin, and in our sin, we show that we love others more than God and we a show that we are not primarily concerned with our relationship with God, but with our own pleasure and our own desires. And right from the get go, as we consider this, then we have to recognize and in the book of Hosea is designed to put us in Hosea's seat. Right. And it's you are supposed to be considering at this point the pain and the embarrassment and the agony that your sin causes a holy God who loves you and is covenanted with you to be your husband. And so, indeed, it is a painful and a shameful thing for us to acknowledge how we treat God. Now, at this point, we do need to deal with an objection. And the objection would be that some people reading this would say, yes, that was true that Israel was unfaithful to God and that they went their own way and worshipped with the Baals and these sorts of things. But that's not true for New Testament believers. The same description is is not true of us because we have the Holy Spirit and we do not struggle with the same unfaithfulness that they struggled with. Well, for many of you, you're immediately just going to say, well, I don't think that that's a good explanation. I understand and see that I am unfaithful to the Lord. However, just to demonstrate that God doesn't keep this description to only those in the Old Covenant, only those before the time of Christ, we can demonstrate that there's actually a pattern through the Scripture, an unfolding of this doctrine of spiritual adultery. And it actually begins way back in the Pentateuch. For instance, in Exodus 34, and again in Deuteronomy, Exodus 34, 13-16, if you want a particular reference to look at later. God talks about, through the mouth of Moses, the fact that when you worship with these other gods, you are being the adulterous and the harlot. And Moses says at the end of his life, after I die, I know that you will go and commit harlotry with the false gods of these surrounding nations. And then we aren't going to trace through every verse that deals with this theme because there are many of them. But if you want to look at a few in the New Testament, we find at the time of Christ in Matthew 12, 38 and 39. He. 12, 38 and 39 to the scribes and Pharisees asking for a sign He answers them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. And then going on forward in the book of James, James four, verse four. And a very close parallel with some of the things that we're going to find in the book of Hosea, the book of James four, four, James writes, adulterers and adulteresses. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. And the same imagery is picked up by Paul in 1st and 2nd Corinthians. 2nd Corinthians 11, 1-3 is another example where our friendship with the world is adultery against God. When we value the world and serve the world and delight in the things of this world, we are cheating on God and our husband, Jesus Christ, who's given his life for us. And so, therefore, we want to see that the unfaithfulness that's described and dealt with and that's illustrated by the life of Hosea is not merely a problem for Old Testament saints, but it's a description for us as well in our struggles with the world. So Hosea marries this woman, this woman, Gomer, who is unfaithful. And she is so Gomer's representing God. Gomer is representing the people of Israel and their unfaithfulness and their wickedness and against God. And And now what we find is, continuing, if you will, through the farmer in the dell, we find that they have a family. And so after he marries Gomer, she conceives and bore him a son. And 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. If she'll come to pass in that day, they will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." So, kids, how many of you wanted to be named Jezreel? Well, Jezreel is the sign of a of a valley, of a city, and a city that's in the middle of a valley in the Northern Ten Tribes. And Jezreel is the location of Ahab that set up a palace there that he liked to spend time at. It's where Naboth's vineyard was. And more importantly, for the purposes that Hosea's drawing us to, Jezreel is the spot where when Jehu came to power, Jehu was a captain in Joram's army. Joram was the grandson, right, of Ahab. Yeah, Joram's the grandson, I think, of Ahab. And Jehu is a captain in his army, and Jehu comes to power and kills Joram, kills Jezebel, kills in Jezreel, he kills Jezebel in Jezreel, he also in Jezreel puts to death 70 of the descendants of Ahab. So that the name Jezreel in the mind of the Israelites is like the name Pearl Harbor in your minds. You would not name your child Pearl Harbor. Not only because it's two parts, but, or Gettysburg. You probably would not name your child Pickett's Charge or something like this, except for the fact that in our recent congregational history, we have a name similar to Jezreel. Can you think what it is? We baptized here in the last few months a Shiloh. Shiloh is a biblical place. It's a place where the tabernacle was set up when the people of God first got to the Promised Land. But it's also the name of the bloodiest battle in the western part of the Civil War in western Tennessee. There's a battlefield, a bloody battle called Shiloh. And so in a similar way, and of course, that's not what Scott and Betsy were thinking of. Let's just clear that up right away. But when when when Hosea names Jezreel, he is thinking of God's giving him a name that will be symbolic of this blood fest that Jehu had inflicted on the children of Ahab. And God says, call his name Jezreel because what goes around comes around. And we're now four generations later than Jehu and his great, his wickedness, the bloodshed that he inflicted on the house of Ahab will now come and be inflicted on him. And in fact, that's exactly what happened. His son, Zechariah, reigned six months and was then overthrown And it's clear that God considers the overthrow of the line of Jehu really the end of the kingdom. Even though there's a handful of kings that come later on, they just serve for short periods of time. They're constantly overthrowing one another and all sorts of things. And so God says clearly, I'm going to bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. And that's one of the reasons, actually, going back to verse one, why when Hosea recounts which kings he served under, he primarily refers to kings from the southern kingdom, even though he's serving in the north, because in his mind, once once Zechariah dies, the kingdom of the north is done for. And so Jezreel, this child's name, Jezreel, to symbolize the end. of the kingdom. And Jezreel means to scatter. And Assyria is going to come in 733 and then again in 722 BC and scatter this people abroad. 2 Kings 15.29 speaks about scattering. That's one place it does that. So, child number one is a boy. And his name is Jezreel, because God is going to destroy this kingdom, just like the house of Ahab was destroyed at Jezreel. And God's going to scatter them across the nations. Now, Jezreel's not the last child. We see in verse 6, she conceived again and bore a daughter. And God said to him, call her name Lo-Ruhamah. And before we look at the meaning of Lo-Ruhamah and also then the last son, Lo-Ami, notice what is missing from verse 6 and from verse 8 that was present in verse 3. So we're comparing verses 3, 6, and 8. Verse 3, Jezreel is the child of Hosea and Gomer. Verse 6, Hosea is not mentioned. Verse 8, Hosea is not mentioned. And this seems to be a very intentional thing on the part of Hosea. And we don't want to make arguments from Scripture solely on the basis of silence and say, well, just because he's not mentioned here, therefore, these aren't his children. But also, the confirmation comes in verse 2. Not only is Hosea going to have a wife of harlotry, but he's going to have children of harlotry. So Hosea is now faced with the pain, not only of having an unfaithful wife, but also of raising children who are not his, and who he knows are not his, and very possibly people in the neighborhood know are not his as well. And so this second child is born, and God tells him, name her Lo-Ruhamah. Lo is the Hebrew word that means no, and Ruhamah means mercy or compassion. I'm no longer going to have mercy and compassion on this people. I will utterly take them away. And so God, because of their persistence in sin, God is going to remove his mercy from them. God had been good to this people. He had testified to them. He had sent his prophets to them. He had called them to repentance. And again and again and again, they won't hear him. And they continue in their unfaithfulness. And God says, I am not going to have compassion on this people any longer. But I will utterly take them away. And so that is Lo-Ruhamah. Then she conceives again. In verse 8, she conceives and bears a son. And God says, call his name Lo-Ami. Lo, once again, means no. Ami means people. You are not my people and I will not be your God. God is saying the covenant promises I made, I will be your God, you will be my people. It's going to be gone. I disown you. You are no longer my people. I am not your God anymore. This painful pronouncement by the Lord is one that we need to feel the weight of. For God to say, for God to say, you are no longer my people. This damns this generation, this people, because of their rebellion to hell. And it's important that we take note of this. Because as baptized people, whether adults or children, God has put his name on you and God has said about you in your baptism, you are my people. You are my sons. You are my daughters. And yet recognize, if you walk away from the Lord in order to live in rebellion, that God will not count you as His people. If you walk away to go your own way, just like Gomer did, just like Israel did, God then will say, you are no longer my people. And God here is teaching the children of Israel that His promises that His covenant with them, that their wickedness will break that covenant with them individually. That if they turn their back on Him, that He will walk away from them. So it's a warning to us. A severe warning to them and to us as well. And yet, we find God's mercy here as well, in abundance. Because while Israel was unfaithful, while Gomer was unfaithful, while you are unfaithful, the Lord here says, 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. God says, where it used to be said to you, Lo, Ami, you are not my people. Now it will be said, you are sons of the living God. Notice the elevation there, right? It's just like we see throughout the pages of Scripture. Adam and Eve lose the Garden of Eden. But God and His power causes us to end up somewhere better. They, through their wickedness, sacrificed the right to be the people of God. And God says, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make a group and call them sons of the living God, not just merely my people. but my adopted children. And say to your sisters, mercy is shown. No longer, lo, Ruhamah, no mercy. But say, mercy is shown. And we also see that Jezreel comes up again. They will gather together. The children of Judah and Israel shall be gathered together So these scribes have been separated. There have been division between them. They'll 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 we might say, in what way? How does that make sense? Great will be the day of slaughter. Well, Jezreel means not only to scatter. It also means to plant. And God here is promising, great will be the day when I plant you once again. When you are led up out of captivity and led up by one head and planted by that one head. And what's he talking about there? He's talking about Jesus Christ. When the two tribes will no longer be separate, each having their own king. When the people of God will not be scattered into various kingdoms, serving various rulers, That the kingdom of God will be united under the one head that is Jesus Christ. Who will lead us and plant us. And so Christ is the one who Hosea proclaims here. Who will reestablish the covenant with the people of God. And will make sure that the covenant promises of God are true for the people of God. As Corinthians says, that the promises of God are yes and amen. And so the people of God will no longer be scattered, will no longer be few in number, but will be as the sand of the sea. What God is saying through the mouth of Hosea here is that the promises that were made to Abraham have not been nullified because of the sinfulness of the people. That the promises that were made to Abraham, that the things that God said would happen, in spite of the wickedness of this generation, in spite of the fact that God will turn his back on them, that God will still accomplish his purposes in his people. And that God will still show mercy and adoption and gather his people once more under Jesus Christ. Do you deserve this kind of mercy. Can any one of us say that our lives merit this kind of love? Even more than Gomer was ever unfaithful to Hosea, we have been unfaithful to the Lord. And in no way do you deserve to be called sons of God. In no way do you deserve to receive mercy from God. In no way do you deserve the positive meaning of Jezreel. You deserve to be planted by God. And yet, that's exactly what the Lord does for you through Jesus Christ. God gives you a covenant head to lead you. And God is faithful to His promises. In our living room, many of you know that we have up the copies of our marriage vows. Two frames. My vows to Ruth and Ruth's vows to me. This is if in our marriage with God that we have taken the match to the framed copy of our vows to Him. And just completely ripped them to shreds and destroyed them. And God, instead of choosing to shatter His promises to us, says, fine, if your frame goes down, my frame goes down. God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I will be faithful to you. I will love you. I will have mercy on you. People of God, the book of Hosea should cause you to see your sin in a whole new light. If it does not disgust you that you could hurt God in this way, if it doesn't disgust you that you would turn your back on the most faithful husband and the husband who has loved you and given all for you, and then you just turn away to walk after other pleasures, other desires, then you don't really understand the point of the book. Hosea is given to cause us to see our sin in a whole new light. But we can give thanks because Hosea's message is not only a message of how disgusting our sin is, But it's also a message of how great the love of God is to overcome even our great wickedness. And so we have good news today as the people of God. That though our sin is disgusting, though it is vile, though it is unspeakable, that God's mercy and forgiveness is even greater And we praise Him for it. Let's pray. Lord, how we wish that we were faithful to You. We wish that we could hear the story of Hosea, the illustration of Gomer, and say that this does not resonate with me. I don't understand. But Lord, we do understand. We understand all too well what it means to be unfaithful to someone who has loved us. And Lord, we have been unfaithful to You. You've loved us with an everlasting love. You've sent Jesus Christ to take away our sin. You've given us a perfect husband in Jesus Christ. And yet, time and again, we've gone our own way. And Lord, we even see fruits of our unfaithfulness in our lives. And yet, Lord, we thank you for your abounding love to the chiefest of sinners. For your great grace to people who know better and who ought to do differently And Lord, we thank you that in spite of our sin, that you keep your covenant promises to multiply your people like the sand on the sea, to make us your sons and daughters, to gather us and plant us. Psalm 92 says those who are planted by the Lord will in God's courts be seen. Lord, we thank you that you've planted us and that you have shown mercy to us who do not deserve your mercy. Lord, we praise You and thank You for it. And Lord, we give You our lives in thanksgiving for all that You've done for us.