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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.
Our Faithful Husband
Series Hosea
Main Point: God is faithful in spite of your adultery
Gos call Hosea to picture Him by marrying an adulteress
Gomer's unfaithfulness represents your sin
Hosea's children represent the judgement that comes from sin
Gos is faithful to His covenant even when you cheat on Him
| Sermon ID | 3201112265110 |
| Duration | 47:48 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Hosea 1:1 |
| Language | English |
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