The following message was given by Pastor Ted Trefskar of Village Presbyterian Church, a PCA church in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. For more information, please visit the church's website at www.villagepca.org. Would you turn to the book of Hosea where we continue this morning, Hosea chapter one. Last week, we began our study of the book of Hosea by looking more broadly at the whole book by way of introduction, looking at the first two verses and noting that given the context, the historical context of When Hosea was prophesying the Lord's call upon him, that God's patience had run out with his people or for his people. They had, because of their wickedness, exhausted his patience. And now it was time for judgment upon the house of Israel, the northern kingdom of ten tribes. And now his judgment, as we'll see this morning, will be poured out upon them. But as we have said last week and as we will continue to note in the midst of that judgment, there is mercy to be found. This morning, I'd like to read, beginning in Hosea chapter one, I'm going to read the first two verses again, but now read all the way through the first chapter to the first verse of the second chapter, Hosea 1.1 through 2.1. Hear now the word of the Lord. The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Biri 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 and 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 Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. And 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-ruamah, 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. Now when she had weaned Lo-ruamah, 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 is said to them, you are not my people. There it shall be said to them, you are the sons of the living God. Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together and appoint for themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brethren, my people, and to your sisters, mercy is shown. Let us pray. Father, again, we come before your presence this morning asking that as we have read your word, And as You have given us grace to hear it with profit, that You might also bless the preaching of Your Word to our growth in Him. And that You, by Your Spirit, would make these words come alive to us in our hearts and minds. That we would understand You to be our God, a God of justice, a God of judgment, a God of mercy. And we pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. Anyone who has been blessed of God with children know that one of the most important things that parents can do is to choose a name for their child. And most of us as parents have taken great care to choose a particular name. I think it's true especially of Christian parents as we choose names a lot of times from the scriptures. We choose them for good reason. We choose them because we believe the name represents, in many cases, what we desire and hope for our children as they grow before the Lord. And so we take that very seriously, again, choosing the name. And it is a very important thing. And that's borne out in the scriptures as we see so many places. If you think about it, there are so many places in the Bible where God takes great care to choose names for his people as well. Think of Abram, who was called Abram, but God said, now you'll be called Abraham. Jacob, who was called Jacob, will now be called Israel. In our study in the Gospel of Luke, we've seen that it was the Lord who chose both the name for John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Savior, and of course, by prophecy in the Old Testament and fulfillment in the New, Jesus' name, of course, was chosen by God Himself because He will save His people from their sins. And so when we come to the book of Hosea, we're not surprised at all to find that God here is picking names again. He's choosing names for Hosea's children. The great difference, of course, is that there's a very particular reason why he chooses these names. And it's not a happy reason. It's a reason consistent with the whole context of the book of Hosea. God's patience had run out. He was now going to bring judgment upon his people, the northern tribes, the people of Israel. And so he says to Hosea, I'm going to give the names for you and these names will represent to you and to the people my judgment against you for your sins. Now, just a little bit of review as we begin to make some headway into this chapter. I remind you, as we noted last week, though, there is a lot of differences of opinion with regard to how we understand this particular book. I believe the best and most persuasive understanding is to see this whole act that is going on here to be real. This is not some drama that is just pretended, that the Lord is asking Hosea to pretend and to act out, but He's actually calling him, and I think it's important to note in an anticipatory sense, that is, the woman that you will marry will one day be a harlot to you. She will be unfaithful to you. That this is a real enactment. Hosea will live this out as the Lord is pleased to call him. And this, as we noted last week, is a most unusual calling. But nonetheless, Hosea is being called to live out in his own life what God and the Israelites have lived out. The Israelites' harlotry, their spiritual adultery, and God's faithfulness and mercy to them despite that. And so that's important to note. And Hosea is told here to go and to take a woman of harlotry. And verse three says that he goes and takes Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Now, I noted this last week, but I want to note it at the outset again here as well. First child seems to be, and the Hebrew is clear here, the first child seems to be born to Hosea and Gomer together. That is, it's their child together. But if you look in the next two children, both Lo-Ramah and Lo-Ami, it is not said in the same sense. And she conceived again and bore a daughter, and she conceived and bore a son. Not to Hosea. In other words, she was living out what the Lord had prophesied to Hosea that she would. She would be a woman of harlotry, and these would not be his children. But nonetheless, they were hers, and they represented for Hosea and for the people the Lord's picture to give to them of his justice and his judgment. And so what I want to do is look in four areas, not three, but four in this section, four areas that we see in these verses, first going through each of the children and what that means. And then, of course, focusing upon the last section, which again is a place of mercy. The first thing we note here is that God is an avenger. God is an avenger, God who is the avenger. Verses 4 and following. This has to do with the first son, his son, whose name is to be Jezreel. Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel in the house of Jehu, and I will 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. Now this is a prophecy of what is about to take place. Remember, Hosea is prophesying in the late to mid 8th century, in 722 BC, the northern kingdom would fall to Assyria. And the Lord is promising that this will indeed happen. And that's what this prophecy means. It's coming, it's going to take place. Now he says the first child, a male, is to be named Jezreel. Now, Jezreel is perhaps, as some say, is very similar to Israel, and there may be greater meaning here that we really see in the passage. Later on in chapter 2, Jezreel will take a very positive tone. And it may be the Lord playing a word game, if you will, with Israel and Jezreel. But commentators are at odds as saying to what reason that is. But the word Jezreel itself is a word that can have different meanings, positive and negative. In one case, it can be a sowing, which is literally God who sows, a sowing with respect to the casting of seeds, as a farmer would do, for the growing of crops. And it could be a very positive sense. But it can also be in the same sense a scattering. That is a scattering of seed in the sense that it's scattered over all the face of the earth. And that is the sense in which the Lord speaks here. His name will be Jezreel because the Lord will judge the people and scatter them upon the face of the earth. And so he says he will scatter them because of their disobedience and their harlotry. Now, the place of Jezreel, which was a place in the northern kingdom in Samaria, was a significant place historically. And the Lord tells us that in this prophecy, He was avenging the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu. Now briefly, some historical reminders here. Jehu, we read earlier, and I hope you were listening carefully to what Jehu did. What Jehu did in 2 Kings 10, was actually in fulfillment, at least partially, of what he was commanded to do in 2 Kings 9. There we read these words as the prophet comes to Jehu. He said, For you, commander, that is, for you I am coming. Then he arose and went into the house, and he poured the oil on his head. This is the anointing of Jehu as king of Israel. And he said to him, Thus says the Lord God of Israel. I have anointed you king over the people of the Lord over Israel. You shall strike down the house of Ahab, your master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants, the prophets and the blood of all the servants of the Lord at the hand of Jezebel for the whole house of Ahab shall perish. And I will cut off from Ahab all the males in Israel, both bond and free. So I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah. The dogs shall eat Jezebel on the plot of ground, the Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her." And he opened the door and he fled. Now he was called to be a king to take up the mantle of God's judgment. He was going to carry out judgment against the house of Ahab. Ahab, of course, being a wicked king in Israel. Jehu now being called to avenge God on behalf of God. And so he was to go and he was to avenge God's holiness. And we're told in those chapters, 9 and 10 of 2 Kings, that he did so. And he went out with great vengeance. In fact, we might stand back and say his vengeance and his tenacity is admirable. And indeed it was. And the Lord blessed him. The Lord blessed Jehu and said, because of your obedience, I will give to your house for four generations the kingdom. In other words, four sons, four generations will have reign over Israel. And in fact, that was true. Zechariah was the last one in the house of Jehu. And when Zechariah was murdered, the end of that line came. And Zechariah marked the end of that judgment. The question is, why then does the Lord say he is going to avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel in the house of Jehu? There are two basic understandings of this. I think both of them are correct. And I think a combination of the two reasons are right. The first reason that's often given by commentators is that the reason the Lord is avenging the bloodshed of Jezreel is because Jehu went far beyond what the Lord said. The Lord said, avenge me on the house of Ahab. Jehu went out, and if you listen to chapter 10, he went out and he killed everybody in sight. He did so in conspiracy with lies and deceit. And at the end of that, the Lord seems to be judging him for that as well, although he acknowledges the blessing on him as well. And so we have this almost divided picture. There's blessing, but there's also a curse. Four generations and then you'll be cut off. And then my judgment, my avenging of that blood will come against you. Most modern commentators take that position. And I think there's truth to that as well. The other thing, and Calvin brings this out, and I think this also comes to mind here, and that is after the avenging of God's holiness on the house of Ahab, Jehu, we learned, did nothing to turn the nation from the worship of idols. The whole idea of avenging God's holiness was to put out all idolatry from Israel. Now, he did so in Samaria. We read at the end of chapter 10 that he gathered all the worshippers of Baal. He killed them all in the place of the worship of Baal. But it says he didn't do it in Dan or Beersheba. He didn't do it in the other places in the northern kingdom. Calvin says, since then Jehu did not change the condition of the country. You have seen and you have been obstinate in your wickedness speaking to the country. I will then avenge these slaughters. In other words, Calvin says, because these slaughters amounted to nothing, that is no change in the nation. He's now going to avenge the bloodshed upon the house of Israel. Well, I think both of those are true in a sense, and I think both of them are seen here in this passage. The Lord says that in that day which shall come to pass, I'm going to break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. That was a valley of great battle. It was a valley where all these deaths took place. It would be the valley of future battles and the valley again where the Lord would overthrow his people. Again, one commentator writing about the breaking of the bow, which is interesting because the Lord is speaking in many places in the Old Testament about breaking the bow of his enemies. That means he's going to overthrow their power. They're trusting in their bows. They're trusting in their resources, their arm of strength. And the Lord says, I'm going to break them all. But now, he says, I'm going to break the bow of Israel. That is, whatever it is that they're trusting in, I'm going to break it. Listen to one commentator who writes with regard to this when he says, we're here warned ever to take heed lest anything should lead us to a state when God threatens us. Though we may have strength, though fortune, so to speak, may smile on us, though in a word the whole world should combine to secure our safety, yet there is no reason why we should be happy when God declares Himself opposed to and angry with us. Why so? Because as He can preserve us when unarmed, whenever He pleases, so He can spoil us of all of our arms and reduce our power to nothing, Let this verse, he goes on to say, then come to our minds whenever God terrifies us by his threatenings. And what it teaches us is this, that he can take away all the defenses in which we vainly trust. That's what he means when he says, I'm going to break your bow. Every defense that you're trusting in is nothing to me. And I will break it in the midst of your rebellion and of your harlotry. And so the Lord, through the first child, says, I am an avenger, and I'm coming against you." Now, you'll notice as it goes on that it also escalates. And these next two names in particular strike a chord of terror in the heart of any child of God who hears these things. And she conceived, in verse 6, and bore again a daughter, and God said to him, call her name Lo-ru-amah. Literally, she has received no mercy. She will receive no mercy. I will utterly take them away." It's a reminder that the God who says to Moses, I am a God of compassion and mercy, has a place where he says, I will no longer have mercy upon the children of Israel. I will no longer show them mercy. In fact, I will utterly take them away. And that is exactly what happened. as the kingdom of Assyria came against Israel, took them away into captivity, destroyed their lands, scattered them over the face of the earth, the Lord utterly taking them away. In the midst of this judgment, He says to the people of Israel, but listen, I will have mercy on the house of Judah. By saying that, He's saying, I'm still a God of mercy, but not to you. I'm not going to show you mercy, but I will show mercy to the house of Judah. And he does so when he says, I will save them not by bow, nor by sword or battle, nor by horses or horsemen. He's referring to that incident when Hezekiah as Sennacherib was outside of the city gates. and saying to Hezekiah, every nation has bowed before me. Can your God possibly stop my advance? Hezekiah spreads out the letter before the Lord and prostrates himself in prayer. The Lord answers his prayer and turns back the enemy. Sennacherib is violently killed by his own sons and the Lord spares them. Why? Because it is his mercy. upon the house of Judah. And He says, even as you fall, and the account of Hezekiah is in 701 B.C., even after your fall, I will still be merciful to Judah, but no longer to you. Again, who cannot tremble at such words as they hear the God of mercy say, no longer will I show you mercy. There's only one other thing. It's judgment. It's justice. God's righteous judgment and justice. The last is the greater still. Not only will God not show mercy, but after she had weaned Lo Ruama, she conceived and bore another son. And then God said, call his name Lo Ami. Literally, it means I am not I am for you any longer. Now immediately, those who would have heard this would have understood that this was the self-revelation of God, His own name, His personal name given to Moses. When Moses was about to face Pharaoh, he said, who shall I tell them is sending me? And God says, tell them I am, the self-existent One is sending you. And I am with you. And now the Lord is saying, no longer am I I am to you. You're not my people anymore. And I am not yours. Literally what it says. I'm not yours. You're not mine. And I'm not yours any longer. That progression from the avenging of the bloodshed in Jezreel to a turning away of his compassion towards his people now to an utter forsaking of his people and say, you're not my people anymore and I'm not yours has to again ring terror in the hearts of those who would have heard these words. These words speak of God's judgment, which is a righteous judgment. His people had forsaken his ways, had turned after other gods, other idols. And the Lord says, if you will not worship me, you are not mine any longer. And so he cast them off, gives them into the hands of his servant. of the king of Assyria, which is called in the scriptures his servant, his servant of justice, his means by which he will bring this about. And so the people hear the message that God is judging them. But notice, we are utterly surprised in verses 10 and following. We ought to be. These verses don't seem to fit the context. This is a righteous judgment. They deserve to be judged. God's wrath deserves to be poured out upon them. Why would he in the midst of this show them again mercy? It is, I believe, so that the remnant, the Lord promises that all through this time there is a remnant. Remember Elijah as he fled And he thought he was the only one. He says, no, there are still 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. There's still a remnant, and God's remnant is consistent all the way through. And for the sake of the remnant, he now speaks words of mercy. And he says to them, recalling the promises of God, the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. He says, I'm not forgetting my promise. Really here, we don't have in this first part really the exact words of mercy and of promise. What he's saying is, I know I've made a promise to Abraham that his descendants will be as the sand on the seashore and as the stars in the heavens. In Genesis 22, he spoke those words, that that's exactly what this is going to be. He says, because you did not spare your own son, but gave him up for me and were willing to give him up for me, so I will bless you and make you the head of many nations so that your descendants will be as the stars of the sky and the sands of the sea. He says that's still true. That's still true, he says. My promises will not fail. How then do we understand this? He goes on to say, it shall come to pass in the place where it is said of them, you are not my people, that it shall be said to them, you are sons of the living God. And then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together. He's looking forward to some reunification of the people north and south again together and appoint for themselves one head and they shall come up out of the land for great will be the day of Jezreel. That is, great will be the day of God's planting, his sowing, The people will spring up from the earth and it will be a great day. Say to your brethren, now you are my people and to your sister's mercy is now shown. To what is he speaking? Well, historically, there are certainly places where some of this could be played out. If you think of some of the reforms of the kings of the southern kingdom of Judah after the fall of the northern kingdom, think of the reforms under Josiah. As he institutes again the Passover and the reading of the law, we read in that place that he also invites the tribes from the north to come, and many of them do come and partake in that time of God's mercy again, his returning his people to those things of his word, his obedience to his word and to his law. And certainly we can see that. But it wasn't to a full degree. It certainly wasn't a joining of these tribes together forever because Judah was later judged. Think of the reforms under Ezra and Nehemiah in a very similar way. Ezra and Nehemiah both encouraged the tribes of north and south together to come back to Jerusalem. And again, many do, five in particular. But it's not all of them. It's not all of them together reunited into this one body of which the Lord is speaking. I think here we learn And I think all throughout Hosea, we're going to learn a very important rule for interpretation. And that is we must let the New Testament interpret the Old Testament and not the other way around. If you read the Old Testament here and you just read these verses, one would be led to think that there is still some yet future time when God will reestablish the nation of Israel, all ten tribes on the face of the earth. But is that how the New Testament speaks of these things? Is that what the apostle Paul writes as he quotes from these very passages and speaks about what their fulfillment really is? I point you, first of all, to Romans chapter nine, first Peter chapter two is another place. But listen to Paul's argument in Romans chapter 9. You know the passage well. We've talked about it in Sunday school, God's sovereignty to do as he pleases. But as Paul enters into this argument about what is going to happen with national Israel, this is what he says. What if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, verse 22 of 9, Romans 9, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had prepared beforehand for glory. Even us whom he called and now listen to what he does here. Even us whom he called not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, as he says also in Hosea, I will call them my people who were not my people and her beloved who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it is said to them, you are not my people there. They shall be called the sons of the living God. Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved for he will finish the work and he will cut it short in righteousness because the Lord will make short work upon the earth. The fulfillment of these verses is not to some future reestablishment of a physical nation of Israel, whatever that may be in the future. And I don't know or understand whatever that may look like. But I do know that the fulfillment of these verses is not found there, but rather in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The passages we read earlier in Ephesians 2, in Romans 4, where he says, the Lord calls that which was not what it is. That is, he says that which is not, he declares it to be so. And by that he is saying that there is now a one Kingdom of God, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, where the true descendants of Abraham, the fulfillment of the promises made to him, are indeed gathered into one body. a unity of both northern and southern kingdoms as they were understood and represented to be fulfilled in the church of Jesus Christ. And you and I, as we live in this day where God is unveiling that mystery, where He is calling Jew and Gentile alike into one body, and by that one sacrifice, reconciling both of us, He says in Ephesians, to God. Jew and Gentile alike. We're seeing the fulfillment of these verses here in our day. Not to a future time, but now in the church of Jesus Christ, he is saying, my people, he is saying mercy. He is saying grace and he is saying peace because of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this is going to be important as we continue in the book of Hosea. We're going to come back again and again to this idea of the fulfillment of these things in the church of Jesus Christ. But for now, let me turn to these points of application as we draw this time to a close. The first thing I want to say, and I think I speak in an obvious sense here, these are harsh words. These are words of judgment. But they're spoken to his people. They're spoken to those who are called his people. And they're harsh, and they strike in our ears as those which are heavy to bear. How much heavier it is to bear, as Paul says in Ephesians, for those who have no part in the things of God. For those who are unbelievers, who are living their lives without any concern for the things of God. Already God is not a God of compassion, but only a God of judgment to them. Already God is not their God, and they are not His people. Already God's vengeance is hanging over them, threatening to undo them at every point. Already they are living, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter two, without God and therefore without hope in the world. You see, at least this people at one time had hope in the promises of God, and certainly the remnant continue to have hope and take hope in those promises, but not so those who are apart from Christ. There's no hope. And so the answer, I think, in this passage, the reminder that we see, is especially for those who are outside of Christ, who have no part in them, to flee unto Him, to come to Christ, to believe in Him, to believe in the promises of God, that He is faithful, that He is a forgiving God, that He does cleanse us from our sins, that He does make peace with Himself through the blood of Christ. And so the call needs to be said to those who are apart from Christ to come and to believe the gospel, and to not forsake these things. But very quickly, there are three other things that we learn here. God is faithful in all of His ways. Now, we define faithfulness differently sometimes. His faithfulness is in these verses. He said He would punish, and He's going to punish. Back in Deuteronomy, He said if you'll forsake these ways, if you'll do your own ways, then I will pour out the curses of this mountain upon you. And He's doing that right now. In this section, he's pouring out his judgment and it's a righteous judgment. God spoke it and it comes to pass because he's faithful. The same thing is true for every one of us. He is faithful to chastise and to punish his own children, and he will do so. He will do so because he's faithful, but he's also faithful to heal and to bind up. And he'll do that as well because he's faithful. Where God chastises, where God punishes, where God strips away, He also restores, and He blesses, and He strengthens. God is faithful in all of His ways, and we need to be reminded of that this morning. The second thing, and more particularly, this passage teaches us that there are consequences when we leave God's path. There are consequences when we stray from God's path. The consequences for the people of Israel is God utterly throws them over or cast them out. He allows an enemy to come in to destroy his own people, his own possession, if you will. He allows them to come in to destroy them. He turns his back away from them. He shows them no more mercy. And he says, you're not any longer my people. Those are all consequences when we leave God's path. And the Bible from beginning and end says, what else are we to expect when we walk away from God's ways? What is it that we expect? We ought to expect God's chastisement, his judgment, that he might draw those who are truly his back to himself, for that's the purpose. Dr. Boyce, in his wonderful commentary, puts it so succinctly and so clearly. The principle involved here, he says, is that when you reject God, you get into trouble. God is faithful, but one expression of His faithfulness is that when we run away from Him, things will not go well. God guarantees that they will not go well. He will scatter our dreams in our faces. You may think that you are going to satisfy yourself by seizing the world and its pleasures, but God will cause them to turn to dust in your mouth even as you devour them greedily. That's a graphic description, but it's true. And it's true for everyone who has ever strayed or wandered from God. Every dream that we have that is apart from him, he turns to dust in our mouths. Even as Dr. Boyce says, we devour them greedily. Let us beware of the consequences when we leave God's path. But let us finally and thirdly rest in the promises of God, which are true. And I come back to that point. God's promises to Abraham are true. Israel was cut off. Judah later, some 150 years later, will be cut off. Does that mean the promises of God have failed? No. The church is the fulfillment of the promises of God. The nations of the world are being blessed through the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Gospel goes forth to all the nations, the church is now the people of God, the Israel of God. And it has always been so, the Lord says. It was a mystery veiled in times past. But all along, the Lord says, you will be a blessing to all nations. Not just to one, but to all. And in Abraham, those promises were given in the church those promises were made true. Jesus said in John chapter 8, Abraham longed to see my day and he saw it and he rejoiced. The day that he saw was the fulfillment of these promises in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That leads us I think it is should to a life of obedience and service, not like Israel, of rebellion, of hard-heartedness. But when we recognize that we are a people who have received the mercy of God, that he has declared to us that he is our God and we are his people in Christ, that he has shown us compassion when we did not deserve it, that ought to lead to a life of obedience. Let us pray. Father, we again come before you gracious for all of your promises Your mercy shown to us in Christ, the fulfillment of those things in the church. And as we pray this morning, we pray that you would be gracious to us even more in keeping us from that path of waywardness, of spiritual harlotry and adultery. For we are yours purchased with a price. We do not belong to ourselves. Be gracious to us in turning our hearts where that is necessary. and more firmly establishing them in the things of your word, the promises which are true. Be merciful to us for Christ's sake, for we pray it in his name. Amen. Amen.