to God's Word in the Old Testament. The prophet Hosea, as I already mentioned in prayer, we sometimes think of the Old Testament and the people of God, and then we compare it with today's world and say, oh, what has this world come to? But what has this world and the church kept coming to? I find this in Hosea, a remarkable passage that I would like to consider with you, with God's help. Hosea 2, read 1 through 16. Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi, and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Plead with your mother, plead, for she's not my wife. Neither am I her husband. Let her therefore put away her hordoms out of her sight and her adulteries between her breasts, lest I strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. And I will not have mercy upon her children, for they be the children of hordoms. for their mother has played the harlot. She that conceived them has done shamefully. For she said, I will go after my lovers that gave me my bread and my water and my wool, my flax, my oil, and my drink. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns and make a wall that she shall not find a path. And she shall fall after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them. She shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now. For she did not know that I gave her corn and wine and oil and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Therefore, I will return and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, to recover my wool, my flax, given to cover her nakedness. And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her first feast days, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. And I'll destroy her vines and her fig trees, where she has said, these are my rewards that my lovers have given me. And I'll make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. And I will visit upon her the days of Balaam, when she burnt incense to them. She decked herself her earrings and her jewels. She went after her lovers and forgot me, saith the Lord. Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably to her. and I will give her her vineyards from thence, and a valley of acre for her door of hope, and she shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. It shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishai, and shalt call me no more Baalai. That's by the word of God. That's quite an unusual story. but it's actually history. And it's not just God speaking through Hosea to the people back then, but it's also God speaking to us today. This is the word of God. And it's brutally honest, both about who we are, but also thanks be to God about who he is. I want to specifically focus on verse 14, but I want to get up to that context, and it'd be helpful if you have your Bible open, because I will go back a few times to chapter one, and then see what this really is about. Our theme is comfort in the wilderness. And I want you to note that they live in Canaan, in the promised land. They're not out there in the wilderness here. Comfort in the wilderness. First, we want to see that it's a painful reality, not just for them, but for us too, to live in this world. Second, a loving method. Third, a surprising grace. So comfort in the wilderness. The Lord says, I'll bring her into the wilderness. We read that in verse 14. Who is her? I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her. Who is that she? Well, it's the people of God. It's the bride of the bridegroom, but who had become an adulteress. committed adultery. They departed from the Lord, their God. It's a painful reality. First of all, we see it illustrated. That's what the book of Hosea does. It illustrates this painful reality. From the very beginning, we read about this. We read about it together already, Verse five, you read that their mother has played the harlot, the prostitute or whore. God says in verse four, will not have mercy upon her children for they are children of whoredoms. Their mother has played the harlot. She has conceived them as done shamefully. She said, I will go after my lovers, my idols. And of course, then it was Baal or Baalim, the plural. But I want you to think about it. How this really cuts close to home. Do you, do I have idols? Things we really live for. We live for the Lord, we say that. But what really do we live for? They still had service in the temple at that time. But they said, I will go after my lover, she said. They give me my bread and my water, everything. They were worshiping other gods. Idolatry, idol worship, is really adultery. It's spiritual adultery. It's going away from the true and rightful husband, God himself, through Christ. the Messiah to come at that time. For us, it's the Messiah who has come, the Lord Jesus. They worshiped, we saw in verse 13, Baalim, means Baal in plural, it's Baals. They didn't have just one God, they had many. However, Even though this terrible reality is displayed here, right from the very beginning, it is clear that God intends and desires to draw them and us back to himself. You can read in the very beginning, it says, the word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beri. And at the end of verse two, the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. The beginning of the word. began already in Genesis 3.15 and it keeps coming. John 1, the word was with God and the word was God. By Hosea. Children, do you know what the name Hosea means? Young people, older ones? It's the same as Joshua. Joshua, meaning Yahweh saves. It means the same as in the New Testament, Greek, Jesus. He was called that name because he will save his people from their sins. Very good start already. No matter how devastating this news was, the gospel was right there with it from the very start. But they divorced themselves from the Lord their God as a wife from her husband. So the Lord tells Hosea, to marry a prostitute. Chapter one, verse three. Go take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and the children of whoredoms, for the land has committed great whoredom, adultery, idolatry, adultery, spiritual adultery, departing from the Lord, going after idols. So we read in verse three, an amazing thing that Hosea does it. It's quite something. Prophets, men were not allowed to marry prostitutes. God says, do it. Hosea doesn't complain. He took Gomer, that's her name, the daughter of Diblaim, which conceived and bear him a son. And the Lord says, call his name Jezreel. It's the first of three children. So the Lord not only pictures, illustrates, because that's the thing, it illustrates. that painful reality in Hosea marrying Gomer, but also in their children. And naming them particularly shows that sin has consequences. The first child is Jezreel. You read in verse four. Jezreel means simply, it's a son. God sows or God scatters. It's like scattering seed. And God says that name pictures something too. I will scatter you among the nations if you do not repent and come back to me. And God did that because they did not repent and they were scattered among the nations. Sent them into captivity. The second child, Lo-Ruhamah, number six. It's a girl. Call her name Lo means not, Ruhamah means mercy. No mercy. First I will scatter you, then no more mercy. I will utterly take them away. But then again, you see in verse seven, but I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, I will save them. Not by bow, not by sword, not by battle, not by horse. And then a third child. Verse nine, call his name, Zoboi, lo ami. Again, lo means no in Hebrew. Ami, am is people, the ending mi is mine. Not my people. No more mercy, not my people. I will not be your God. You're not my people anymore. So both the marriage itself as the children's names were illustrations of that painful reality of having departed from God. But it's not just illustrated here, it's intensified in a way that we can all identify with. Because you see, they knew. Children, young people, older ones, when you do something that's wrong, you know. Even people that don't have the 10 commandments in the Bible, if you take something from them, they will get upset. They know that we cannot steal and cannot kill. Have a conscience. And we, in addition to our conscience that pricks when we do something wrong, we have the word of God. They too had the word of God. They knew. And so the Lord not only gives them these conscience pricks, but since they do not repent, God adds to these pricks, not only inward conscience pricks, but outward painful reality. Brings them from a spiritual soul wilderness to a physical body wilderness. He makes it very plain in the verses six through 13 of chapter two. Makes it very plain what he will do. He doesn't bring them back to the wilderness or the desert like Sinai where they had 40 years of traveling and suffering, but he makes the promised land, that land flowing with milk and honey, he makes that a wilderness. He leads them Children, all the ones, from knowing to feeling. I'm sure you've heard something like that from your parents. I did. If I wasn't listening, he would say something like, if you won't listen, you'll have to feel. And it would get some sort of discipline. When I was small, I got a spanking. because I wasn't listening to the voice of my father, my parents, and even my own conscience. I knew it. So from knowing to feeling to experiencing, and there's four key words in this being intensified. If you have your Bible, you can see that in chapter two and verse six. The first one is thorns. Thorns. I'm sure you have walked through thorn bushes or accidentally tried to break it, branch, and before he knew it, he was pricking into your finger. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns and make a wall that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them. She shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then she shall say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now. So do you see the picture? They were breaking from the path. God said, well, hedge their way with thorns. Stay on the way. Don't get off, you get hurt. They were prevented by the goodness of God by thorns to not get into worse sins than they already committed. They wanted it badly, but they couldn't get at it. Isn't that what this world's living is all about? desperate trying to get something that satisfies, and it always eludes them. Anything other than God does not satisfy, ultimately. May give a little high or a good time, so to speak, but it's always a letdown after. Not with God. So the first key word is thorns. Painful, but profitable. The second key word is famine, famine, or hunger and thirst. God says in verse nine, therefore will I return and take away my corn, they thought it was bale's corn, in the time thereof, that's when it's ripe, ready for harvest, and my wine in the season thereof. I will recover my wool, my flax, given to cover her nakedness. Verse 12, I will destroy your vines and fig trees. Whereof she said, remember the adulterous generation, whereof she said, these are my rewards that my lovers have given me. I'll make them a forest, God says, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. Famine. Famine. In other words, God says, if you abuse my gifts and consume it upon your own lust, I will take it all away from you. that you cannot get it anymore. And the third keyword, shame. It's again about that pricked conscience. In verse 10 you read that, now I will discover, or expose really there, her lewdness in the sight of her lovers. Expose her lewdness, her desperate wickedness, her immodesty, indecency. Can it even be translated as obscenity? I'll expose it. I'll take it a notch deeper. Not just guilt inside, but I will make it public. Not only guilty, but also ashamed and embarrassed. Children, young people, older ones, if you do something wrong, you know it's wrong. You feel guilty. but you feel a lot worse when somebody points it out to you and exposes you. Sometimes you would blush with shame. Bad enough to be convicted inside, but also on the outside. Now everybody knows it. God says, I will do that with you, unless you return to me, because that's what I really want. So thorns, famine, shame, and one more, sorrow. Suffering, sorrow, sadness. Verse 11. I will cause all her mirth, or joy, or feasts to cease. Her feast days, new moon, Sabbaths, all her solemn feasts. They have so many feast days. God says I will take them all away. No more feasts, no more fun. Only dreariness, mourning, grief, suffering. I'll do that, he says in verse 13. Because she went after her lovers and forgot me, says the Lord. And then you see in verse 14, therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably to her. It seems like a contradiction of terms. I will lead her into wilderness, but at the same time, I'll speak comfortably. It brings us to a second point. Comfort in the wilderness, not just a painful reality that we have to consider here, but also a loving method. It's amazing if you really study the Old Testament, how beautifully it represents the gospel for bad people. Good news for bad people. Behold, be ready, verse 14, I will allure her. The word alluring is like drawing or wooing. Like a guy will do with a girl when he wants to win her over. To date him, and maybe it, eventually to Mary. I will draw her with love. In chapter 11, verse four, you read, I drew them with the cords of a man, with bands of love. So the purpose to make us see and feel our painful reality is not to destroy, but to save. That's the purpose of every single page in this book. And Hosea is no exception. Not to destroy, but to save. But, just like with disciplining children, sometimes a bit of pain to prevent something worse. So this loving method There's three things I want to consider here. One, it's promised. Promised. So they were not only warned, convicted, but also encouraged. Right away, from the very start, as I mentioned already, there's always a promise connected to the threatening. It was to convict them, yes, so that they would confess and be converted. whether it be for the first time converted or again, because this is not just for unbelievers. This is for the people of God, among whom there were also believers who were drifting. You see it time and again throughout the whole Bible. It's not just always against the unbelievers and the believers who didn't do anything wrong. We have painful examples throughout scripture. of godly people who committed terrible sins, promised if they would return, he will receive them. We didn't read as far as verse 19, but in verse 19, the Lord says, I will betroth thee, I will engage you and marry you unto me forever. It looked like he wanted to divorce himself from his bride, but no, I will marry you forever. Commit myself to that. Remarry them. In chapter 14, verse four, I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely for my anger is turned away. Free love, eternal love. Jeremiah 31, you read something similar. I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore with loving kindnesses have I drawn thee, allured thee. Promised, loving method. Second, demonstrated. I don't know if you noticed that, but in the first verse of chapter two, did you notice? that the prefix lo- is not there. Chapter two, verse one. Say to your brethren, ami, my people. Doesn't say lo-ami now. And to your sisters, ruhama, mercy. We see that he goes from the no people, not my people to my people, from no mercy to mercy. Demonstrated. my people and mercy. And of course, ultimately, God demonstrated it in the sending forth of his son, the Messiah, to suffer and die, to bear the wrath upon our sins. Because without that sacrifice, there could be no forgiveness, demonstrated. sending his son to die for sinners like we are, for adulterers, spiritual idolaters. Jesus says in John 12, 32, I, if I be lifted up, crucified, from the earth, I will draw all men to me. It's the same idea, I will allure, I will draw all men to myself. Perhaps he was Thinking about one of the passages of the Old Testament, the Song of Solomon 1.4, it says, draw me and I will run after thee. The point is, the Lord says, I will win you back. I'll woo you back. I will not force you, not by power nor by might, but by my spirit, says the Lord. You see how kind, how amazingly good and patient God is, demonstrated. promised, demonstrated, but also then accomplished. Because Jesus did come, he did die, he did arise. We just thought about that in the last several weeks. He arose from the dead victoriously. Yes, it's often painful to be drawn back to that. It can hurt. But whatever pain we suffer from our departures is not God's fault. When God puts a hedge on both sides of our path and we get hurt, we have only one to blame. Maybe you go with your children on a hike and you tell them at a time, don't get off the path because there's a lot of thorn bushes there. And then one of the children still runs off and comes back, oh, it hurts, it hurts. Whose fault? You weren't. So God intends these thorn bushes even though they don't feel pleasant when you walk into them, even when you stumble into them, but therefore are good. And that's all these events that happen in our life. It's all to bring us back and keep us on that path. To stay, first to get on the right path and then to stay on it. I'm sure you've heard that saying, we are our own worst enemies. It's our own actions that cause our hurt. Just like the Apostle Paul on the way to Damascus. You remember the story, children, when the Lord struck him down and then Saul said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. It's hard for thee to kick against the bricks. As if to say, why do you keep kicking back against these bricks, these conscience bricks? Like an ox that didn't want to pull the plow. The Lord says, why do you keep kicking against the pricks? They're meant for your good. Keep pulling their plow. Don't be like Israel, kicking against God's pricks, your conscience. How do you respond to conscience pricks? When you feel guilty, what do you do? Do you keep going or do you confess? Say, oh Lord, I'm sorry. Not only confess it, but turn away from it. Not only confessing your sin, but with all your might and effort to serve the Lord for it's worthy. He is far more worthy than anything the world or these idols or whatever things promise us. And the amazing thing is that when you come to him, he will forgive because that's why he did it in the first place. He convicts us not just to make us feel bad, but to become good, cleansed, forgiven. He will forgive. And it brings to the third and last point, a surprising grace. Speak comfortably to her. Even though we know it, I don't know how to say, but even though you have, if you're a believer and you have gone back and you said, oh Lord, I will, we sang it together, remember not the sins of youth and even my ongoing sins, and then you stumble and trip into it again and again and again, you think God will be done with me. The older I get, the more amazing grace becomes. It's amazing how willing, ready the Lord is to forgive again and again and again, repeatedly. Not to minimize sin, but to maximize grace. There is forgiveness, but that he may be feared. Sometimes this ongoing conviction and stumbling and falling causes many believers to think it's done, God must be done with me. That's why so many sometimes find it very hard to have that comfort. Some even stay away from Lord's Supper because of that. I just wanna consider just three reasons why it's so surprising what God is doing. It's so counterintuitive. It's countercultural. How many times would you forgive somebody who would keep on doing the same thing over and over and become the 20th time to you? Will you please forgive me? What do you say? I don't know. We keep doing it. That may be the reason why we think that God will think in a similar way. God says, do you think that I am altogether like you are? The first reason is, It's unexpected. Unexpected. Even in this passage. Did you notice that the word therefore was three times there? Verse six, therefore behold I will hedge up their way with thorns. The second one is verse nine, therefore I will return and take away my corn and everything. And then verse 14, therefore you expect to read, therefore I will destroy you forever. That makes sense, logically, humanly speaking. The third, therefore, for that reason. But then instead, behold, I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness. Yes, that will hurt a bit, but speak comfortably to her. It's expected, unexpected. You would think God says, you divorce me, I will divorce you and destroy you forever. Isaiah has something similar, and you find many other places. I mean, Ephesians 2, for example, dead in trespasses and sins, and then a little further, but God. You find this turnaround all the time. But Isaiah 43, verse 24, almost similar to what we have read here. You have wearied me with your iniquities. Verse 24, but then verse 25 goes on, I, even I, am he who blots out all your transgressions for my own sake and will not remember your sins. That's the amazing unexpected therefore. That's unexpected. Humanly speaking, we know it because of the word of God, but it goes contrary to what we think and imagine. Second is the surprising grace is the fact that it's undeserved. Not only unexpected, but undeserved. Sometimes we feel that we have to deserve, we must feel that we are worthy. to be accepted with God, to be a worthy communicant, to be worthy. Be honest, if you've had at the end of a bad day, right? At the end of a bad day and you feel terrible, compare it with the end of a good day that you've done well. Does God love you any less or more? No, but it feels like somehow I didn't measure up today, will He still love me? God says, yes, for my own namesake, not for anything in you, that's obvious, but for my own namesake. It's again and again focused on the name of God, the name of the Lord Jesus. I save sinners from their sins. Somehow we think we have to somehow earn our acceptance back to God in a subtle way. Of course, we know theologically not, but practically sometimes. So, if ever you feel worthy of it, you may be farther from the truth than when you feel unworthy, because that's what you are in yourself. Our worthiness to be accepted with God has nothing to do with our sins or whatever we have accomplished or not accomplished. It has to do with the worthiness of Christ. He is worthy. He said on the cross, it is finished. It's accomplished. And it brings us to the third part, or the next thing is here, the accomplice, the unfathomedness of the whole idea. How can we understand ever what the Lord Jesus said? It is finished. It's always undeserved, and it's also unfathomed. That's another reason that we have such a hard time to accept it. It's surprising grace, not only because it's unexpected and undeserved, but it's unfathomed. There's nothing in the world or in the universe that comes anywhere near to it. All other religions, you have to somehow climb up to God. Another reason why we are surprised by grace is because we think it's too good to be true. Too good to be true. You remember the history of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, rather, who heard about Solomon and all these fantastic stories about his wealth, his wisdom, and his worship, the temple. This is what we read in 1 Kings 10. But I believe not the words till I came and my eyes had seen it and behold, the half wasn't told me. So it became from too good to be true, the half wasn't even told me, it's far better. This is what the gospel is all about. And this is being pictured, illustrated in this difficult, strange, unique passage. Hosea had to picture this, not only to proclaim it, but he had to picture it, about God's incredible, infinite, eternal, unfathomable love. So the reality is even far better than I could ever preach it, that I even could preach and proclaim it in glory, even in heaven. It would never be done, because if God is infinite, how can he ever be done knowing him? That's why we need an eternity. So the Word of God shows only a glimpse of that. Even the Lord's Supper is but a glimpse, it's but a foretaste. The best is still to come. You know the saying that Jesus said in Matthew 12? Behold, greater than Solomon is here. I like to take the liberty, behold, greater than Hosea is here. Jesus himself to speak comfortably, comfort in the midst of a wilderness, spiritual wilderness of this world, not only the spiritual wilderness outside of us, but too often even inside of us. That's how God wants to come to him. as a total failure, no matter how much you have grown in grace, you have not even begun to live up to the potential that God will work in us in glory if indeed we are believers. World of sin, heart full of sin. The Lord says, I'll open in the Valley of Acre a door of hope. You remember that story about Achan when he stole stuff from Jericho and then they lost the battle against Ai. And so that was first a closed door because right after Jericho, they lost the battle to Ai. But as soon as the sin was removed, Achan was put to death, the door was opened. That's what this Valley of Acre is all about, a door of hope. She shall sing there as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. Nothing new under the sun. And shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishii. And Ishii means my Lord or my husband. Ishii, no more Baalai, no more my Baal, but my Lord, my Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the picture of the gospel. Just another picture, another illustration is when we hope to see in the Lord's Supper. In this world of sin, this spiritual wilderness. Just like it's always led out of Egypt, we who are here every morning, I trust also, I'm the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and maybe many of you never have been in Egypt. God said, I led you out of Egypt, but you also know that not every single one went into the promised land. So we are in the wilderness of this life, and we have this wonderful gospel picture set in front of us. To have comfort in the wilderness. So for those that partake of the bread and the wine, when you eat the bread and drink the wine, reflect upon it. that you have just a foretaste, just a little taste, and so don't focus on the bread and on the wine, but on the Lord Jesus, who was nailed to the cross, who died for us, so that we may have his life. He also rose right now, sitting at the right hand of his Father, praying for us. and speaking to us through this word.