Our New Testament reading is in Romans chapter 9. And as is our custom in the summer months, we'll be switching the order of our readings, starting with the New Testament. And as was mentioned in the announcements, I'll be preaching through the Old Testament book of Hosea. Romans 9, verses 1 through 29, this is God's word. So let us give our attention to its reading. I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham, because they are his offspring. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said, about this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son. Not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born, and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of his call. She was told, the older will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. He will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He has prepared beforehand for glory? even us, whom he has called not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. As indeed he says in Hosea, those who were not my people I will call my people, and her who was not beloved I will call beloved. And in this very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God. And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay. And as Isaiah predicted, if the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah. There ends the reading of God's holy, infallible, inspired, and inerrant Word. May He write His truth upon our hearts this day. I'll limit my comments on Romans 9 because we're going to take it back up again toward the end of our study of Hosea 1 this morning. As you notice, Paul cites Hosea. But suffice it to say, Romans 9 is that chapter that we turn to to be reminded, to be humbled, that we are not the center of the world. but that God is the one who is working out His redemptive plan. Perhaps you've found yourself at times coming sort of head-to-head with God's will, wondering how it is fair, wondering why He allows or does or so on certain things. Romans 9 reminds us of our place, much like the book of Job reminds Job of his place. Romans 9 reminds us Who are we to answer back to God? And yet, that's not where Romans 9 ends. That's not where Scripture ends. Yes, it is in God's complete ability to simply silence us and say, I own you no explanation. But Paul presses on. And he reminds us. He reminds us that this is God's plan to save a people. To show His love toward His people. This is the point of Romans 9. Yes, God is sovereign. Indeed, God is working all things out according to His glory. But God is good. And if you lose the reality that God is good, then God being sovereign becomes nothing more than terror in your lives. So remember, beloved, that God is good in all that He does. This is God's Word and I pray that as you meditate upon it, that it would bear fruit in your lives. I invite you now to take your Bibles once more and turn in the Old Testament to the book of Hosea. This morning we'll be considering Hosea chapter 1 through chapter 2 and verse 1. breaking the protocol, I suppose, of obeying those chapter markers, but hopefully you'll see that they do. Chapter 2, verse 1 goes with chapter 1. Once more, this is God's word. Let's give our attention to its reading. The word of the Lord that came to Hosea the son of Mbiri, 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 first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom, and have children of whoredom. For the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord. So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. And she conceived and bore him a son. And the Lord said to him, call his name Jezreel. For in just a little while, I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel. And I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. And on that day, I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, Call her name Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel to forgive them at all, but I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen, When she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said, call his name Lo-Ami, for you are not my people, and I am not your God. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, It shall be said to them, Children of the living God, and the children of Judah, and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head, and they shall go up from the land. For great shall be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brothers, You are my people, and to your sisters, You have received mercy. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever. Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we begin this morning a task that will not be simple. We tackle once more an Old Testament prophet. I do have in mind to make our way toward the larger prophets, the prophets of Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel. But first we need to work through some of the smaller books to understand the work of the prophet, perhaps do not find ourselves how it can feel bogged down over a year and a half through certain prophetic books. But Hosea has long been a favorite of Old Testament prophets, if only because the story that it tells seems so amazing that we find ourselves reeling and wondering, did God really do this? Did God really call a prophet to take an unfaithful wife? We'll come to that question as we work our way through our text this morning. But I want to remind you as we turn to the Old Testament, and we do look at the Old Testament often in this congregation, and especially over the summer months. We'll return to Matthew, God willing, in September and press on. But then after Matthew, when we finish, The goal is to move to the book of Deuteronomy, so I'll spend some more time in the Old Testament. But this is our practice of looking at books from the New Testament and the Old Testament, because God has given us the entirety of Scripture for our understanding, for our learning, for our instruction. As the Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 15 in verse 4, whatever was written in former days was written down for our instruction. That through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope. So it is my desire, as we work through the book of Hosea, that we would, in fact, be encouraged, that we would be pointed to our hope, and that, of course, is Jesus Christ. We also remember the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10, in verse 11. They're talking, of course, about the Exodus in the wilderness, but really, the entire history of the Old Testament saints. Paul says these things happened to them as an example. but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come." The end of the ages, beloved, has come upon us because we live in the time between Christ's two comings. He has first come in giving His life and offering Himself up for death upon the cross. And we wait, we long, we expect His second coming. The end of the ages has come upon us, and so these scriptures are written down for our instruction, so that we might be encouraged, so that we might be at times even corrected. So our goal is to understand Hosea in its context. What was God saying to Hosea? Why did He say it at that particular time? What is going on in the nation of Israel at that time is what we want to think about. And then to understand it in its redemptive historical context. How does it point us to Christ? But then also to remember that this is written down for our instruction. So what does it say to us? In God's providence, we, in our time of confession, we looked at the seventh commandment. And as you can tell, this book is all about the seventh commandment. For the seventh commandment, yes, you shall not commit adultery. It deals, of course, with the horizontal relationships of husbands and wives. But it's not without reason that God takes this idea or this understanding of marriage and applies it to His relationship with His people, both in the Old and in the New Testaments. So we began this morning in much the way that we do in an introductory sermon to get our bearings, to understand what's going on at that time. But we're going to cover a fair amount of text. We're going to look at Hosea's marriage. We're going to look at Gomer's children. And then lastly, we're going to look at God's promise. And those are the three points before you in your outline. And I encourage you to have that before you and your Bibles open in front of you as well as I'll be referring us to those texts. We begin then with the identity and the timing. Hosea was a prophet, and that's, you know, saying something that most of us, if not all of us, have some kind of understanding about. But I want us to remember, of course, and I say this every time we look at a prophet, is a prophet was not somebody who necessarily told the future. A prophet was a person who was raised up into God's presence, given a message to proclaim to the people. And so it's not about foretelling, it's about foretelling. It's about telling what God has commissioned them to say. We think about Isaiah, who's caught up in Isaiah 6, in the presence of God, and he is to go and talk about the destruction of Israel. And when Isaiah says, how long, O Lord? He's told, not until the entire city is laid waste. And by the way, Hosea is ministering right around the same time as Isaiah, as we note from the opening of his book. Hosea is contained in the book of the 12, which is referred to as the minor prophets. This doesn't mean a lesser prophet, it just means the smaller books of the prophets. Compared to 66 chapters in Isaiah, or 52 chapters in Jeremiah, or 48 chapters in Ezekiel, Hosea only has 14 chapters and fewer verses, but that doesn't mean that he's lesser of a prophet. He's the first of the minor prophets, but that doesn't mean that he has some kind of preeminence over the other prophets, but rather that in the collection of books he is placed there in order to highlight the reality of sin. And you remember from our evening sermon series through the Minor Prophets that we just looked at them one at a time, sort of one sermon per week, one book per week. As we move through, I reminded you that there's this pattern. There's sin, there's judgment, and there's restoration. And we see this. We see this even in the first chapter of the book of Hosea. Hosea's timing, he's ministering, as we learn here, at the time of Jeroboam, the son of Joash. Now, you'll know, you'll remember, of course, that Jeroboam was the first king of the northern kingdom. After Solomon, they split, and there was Rehoboam and Jeroboam. This is not that Jeroboam. This is actually Jeroboam II, who happened several generations later. But he has the same name, which can be a bit confusing. but he is the king of the northern kingdom, Israel. And it is to that kingdom which Hosea is called to prophesy. And that's only notable, I suppose, just to point this out. It was a time of prosperity. Hosea ministered in a time when things seemed to be going well, economically. There was plenty of money. There was plenty of food. What they lacked was faithfulness to the Lord. So the question became, how long would God allow this faithlessness to go along with this prosperity? And Hosea comes to give the answer to that. And the answer, of course, is not much longer. Hosea, as I said, is a prophet, and we see that in verse two, the Lord first spoke through Hosea, and that's sort of a way of saying that Hosea is not speaking his own words, he is speaking the very words of God, and his purpose, the way we can summarize his purpose, and I don't want to get too far into the weeds on this, but it's what's referred to as a covenant lawsuit. Israel is the people of God. They have agreed, and if you go all the way back to Exodus 24, they have agreed, all that the Lord has commanded, we will do, and we will be obedient. And time after time, Israel has shown themselves to not do all that God has commanded, and to not be obedient. And in that way then, Israel is in a sense sort of replaying the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden. As a matter of fact, Hosea will make this connection for us in Hosea 6 and verse 7 when he says, but like Adam they transgressed the covenant. They dealt faithlessly with me there. And so this covenant lawsuit is brought against the Lord's people because God had promised that if they were obedient, they would stay in the land. And not just stay in the land, but enjoy the fruits of the land. And we see this in Deuteronomy 28-29. But here, Leviticus 20 verses 22-23. Here Moses and the Lord is saying, you shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them. And the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. That is, that the land may not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you. For they did all these things and therefore I detested them. Israel comes into the land, they promise obedience. They are told that if they do not, the land is going to vomit them out. And of course, what they end up doing is the very things God commands them not to do. And so, the story of Hosea is a hard one. It's a story of covenant faithlessness. Covenant faithlessness on the part of the people, but covenant faithfulness on the part of God. and how those things work out. That's what we're going to see as we work our way through the book of Hosea together. Well, that's just the identity and the timing and the prophetic pattern. You can read the prophetic pattern, as I said already, in Isaiah 6, but also in the prophet Jeremiah, as well as Ezekiel. But what is the command that is given? This is one that has caused people quite a bit of difficulty over the years. We see there in verse 2, The Lord said to Hosea, Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom, and have children of whoredom. For the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord." But we need to understand a little bit perhaps of what's going on. See, the main sort of deity that Israel had turned to away from the Lord was this deity known as Baal. as Baal. And Baal, it's the word for husband. It was sort of this idea that Baal, this husband god, would provide rain for the ground and bring forth the fruit. And so it was sort of the god of agriculture, the god of husbandry, that is animal husbandry, and also the god of human sexuality. It was believed that Baal would be worshipped and in return he would provide rain. That is, he would give his seed for the ground to produce its fruit. The way Baal would be worshipped would be through temple prostitution and sacrifices. It's no wonder then that God calls Hosea to enact, that is, to go through Israel's faithlessness by taking a wife who would be faithless to him. Now, as I said, this is one of those books that people kind of struggle with. Did God actually say for Hosea to go and do this? How can God command someone to do this? Now, there's different ways in which this has been handled by different commentators. I'll just mention a few of my favorites. One is that God couldn't do this. It's against His own word. In Leviticus chapter 21, God forbids a priest from marrying a non-virgin. But Hosea's not a priest. And so some people will say if what was good for the priest had to at least be good for the prophet as well, but that's saying something that God's Word doesn't say. It's making an implication, but I'm not sure that it's a fair one, and it certainly doesn't seem to line up with Hosea. Some people say that God just wouldn't do this. It's just wrong. One of my favorite commentators, John Calvin, takes this tact. He says, it would have exposed the prophet to the scorn of all if he had entered a brothel and taken to himself a harlot. For he speaks, and I love how Calvin, he gets what's going on here. He gets the scandal of it. For he speaks not here of an unchaste woman only, but of a woman of wantonness, which means a common harlot. For a woman of wantonness is she called, who has long habituated herself to wantonness, who has exposed herself to all, to gratify the wish of all, who has prostituted herself not once or twice, nor to a few men, but to all." I think Calvin understands what's at stake here. And actually, I think the point, as I'm going to try to argue in just a few moments, that God gives to Hosea is actually to be scorned by all. To recognize, to experience, if you will, what it is that the people of God do to the Lord. My other favorite sort of explanation here is that Hosea's wife was actually a faithful wife, a very real and faithful wife, but chapter 1 is a metaphor for Israel's sin. What I like about this is because the way they explain it is it was a little bit like a sermon illustration. Now just imagine if I tried that. It wouldn't go over well, and I don't think it would have gone over well in Hosea's day as well. You have a faithful wife. You praise her for her faithfulness. You don't say, suppose if she wasn't, and then go on to tell this horrific story, bringing children into it and everything. No, I think that there's too much straightforward explanation here in the reading to suggest that something other than the reality is what is happening. God said, go. Hosea went. In fact, the language that's used here is identical in the Hebrew when God says to Abram to go, and Abram went. There's a causal connection. And so, if God commanded him to do this, to take a wife, he knew it would be unfaithful. Indeed, to go, and again, there's different ways they look at it. They think maybe she was faithful to begin with, but then turned away. And as much as I like that, because it takes the sting away a little bit, it doesn't seem to be what the text itself says. Go and take a wife of Hortum. It's almost as if God tells Hosea to go down to one of those temples where Baal is being worshipped and take a wife there. And why? Because that's what Israel has done. That's what the people of God have done. They have willingly given up their blessings. All the things that Paul talks about in Romans 9, to them, theirs is the promise, the Word of God, the patriarchs. They've taken all of that and they've thrown it away for a bowl of slop, just so that they can get some rain from somebody who's not even the Lord of heaven and earth. And I think this is the point. that God wants Hosea to understand and that Hosea, his life would be visible before everybody. God took Israel as his bride. God took Israel And God did so, knowing that Israel would be faithless. Remember, we've been studying, or at least looking together, in 1 Kings, in the building of the temple, over the past weeks, and there Solomon, in his prayer, he even says, if they sin against you, for there is no one who does not sin, then you are angry with them, and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of their enemy, far off or near. There is Solomon praying, even about the exile, prophetically knowing that this is the heart of the people, maybe even knowing his own heart, for you turn the page from chapter 8, you come there to chapter 10, and you learn that Solomon was led astray by his many wives. But I think this is what's going on in Hosea. God is making clear that it is not the people who save themselves, Redemption of a people is not based upon them, but upon the Lord, upon His love, upon His nature, upon His actions. And in that way, while Hosea is a story of faithlessness, it's really a story of covenant faithfulness. Though one party has turned away, though one party has scorned the covenant, God will not give up His people. And so he relies upon this picture, this illustration of marriage, of his relationship with the people of Israel. This is, by the way, something that is both, as I already said, in the Old Testament and the New Testament. If you want to read more about it, you can look at Isaiah 54. You can look, of course, at Ephesians chapter 5. And so Hosea goes and he takes a wife who will break his heart. He takes a wife who will turn away from him. A wife who not once but twice and who knows how many times will go away from him and give herself to another man. And yet we know, I think we understand what's going on here. I think we get the lesson that this is teaching. Because this is what God's people have done. Beloved, the reality is this is what we do. Every time we turn away from God and we indulge our sin, every time we give ourselves over to the ways of this world, we follow after Gomer. Well, before this story is over in the book of Hosea, he will play both parts. He will play both the prosecuting attorney who brings the verdict of the judge, but then he'll act in the place of the judge to redeem his people. Well, that's Hosea's marriage. You can imagine that it would be a difficult marriage to enter into, a difficult marriage to stay in. And yet Hosea does. But what of the children? What of the children? There are three names given to these three children. Jezreel, Lo-Ruhamah, and Lo-Ami. Now you might have, if you're reading along in the ESV, you'll notice that it actually gives the definition or the meaning of Lo-Ruhamah and Lo-Ami. And we'll come to those in time. But these children, it seems, really are sort of the result of both Hosea's marriage as well as Gomer's unfaithfulness. And like Isaiah's children, they become signs and symbols to the people from God Himself. Let's look together at these children. Beginning in verse 3, So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Now, by the way, this is the only time that it says that she bore him a son. And we shouldn't be surprised because he was told to go and take an unfaithful wife. She bore him a son. And the Lord said to him, Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while it will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel. And it will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel." Now this is where it's getting into the description of why it is Hosea is bringing this judgment. Why it is he's essentially suing over the covenant breach. And it comes down to this. The king has been unfaithful. Now you'll notice this is not Jeroboam II. This is Jehu. Something like three generations prior, that king had done things that were wicked in the sight of the Lord. But of course we remind ourselves that when he reveals himself to Moses, as a God who's merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, he says that he visits the iniquity of the fathers and the children, and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation. So that's what's going on here. Under that covenant agreement, God was in fact bringing the sins of Jehu upon Jeroboam II, and really upon the people of Israel. And that was supposed to be signified in the name of this child. And by the way, he gets kind of the nicest of the three names. Like if you're going to enroll your kid in school, and the options were no mercy, not mine, or Jezreel, probably all sign up for Jezreel. Now Jezreel means the Lord sows. The Lord sows. And there's a play on words here. Because remember the whole point was the belief that Baal was the one that sowed the ground. One that brought forth the fruit of the ground. But here it makes clear in this child's name that it's actually the Lord that sows. There's also another play on words because Jezreel, it sounds like, we would pronounce it Jezreel, but it sounds like Jezreel, which sounds like Yisrael in the Hebrew. So there's this play here that God is actually going to take the people and sow them, scatter them, into the nations. Speaking of the exile. Speaking of that, and it really comes down to this reason that's given here by the Lord, the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel. Now by the way, Jezreel was also an actual place, and that's what it's saying there, the blood of Jezreel. You'll find Jezreel in the book of Judges, where a number of battles were fought. It's a place of battle with the Philistines in 1st Samuel 29. Remember that Naboth had a vineyard there in Jezreel, and Ahab wanted the vineyard, and so Jezebel framed Naboth and took his vineyard. And it was here also that Jehu killed Joram, Jezebel, and the rest of Ahab's household in 2 Kings chapters 9 and 10. And it's this one here that God brings up. He commanded Jehu to punish the house of Ahab. But when you go and read it, he went much further than that. He went much further than judging or bringing God's judgment. But he spilled innocent blood. He just spilled blood. And so God was going to punish for Jehu's sin. And in 733 BC, the king Tiglath-Peleser defeats Israel in the valley of Jezreel. By the way, the Valley of Jezreel has another name, it's the Valley of Megiddo. There's a mountain there, the Mountain of Megiddo, or in the Hebrew, Har Megeddon. It was there that God would defeat Israel. It was there that God would scatter, that God would sow Israel in another land. Though He had promised them that they would be in that land, that is, in the land of Israel, He sent them out. The question is, will it be for good? We'll come to that. The second child. She conceived again and bore a daughter. Notice again, as I pointed out, that this doesn't say that she bore a daughter to Him. She simply bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, call her name Lo-Ruhamah. No mercy. For I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel to forgive them at all. Now you can just imagine the shock. the sorrow. I don't know, I guess from my perspective, from our perspective, this side, we sit back and say, how could they endure that name? And yet, they were the ones who had set up golden calves in Dan and Beersheba, and they'd worship them. They were the ones who had avoided going to the temple to worship the Lord through that one high priest appointed by God. Instead, they set up false worship all over the Northern Kingdom, so false that they began to bow down to all the nation's other gods. So while it's shock and while it's sorrow, I have to wonder if their hearts were so hard that they didn't even notice it. As a nation, they had gone after Baal. Because of that, they would not, they should not, they could not expect grace from Yahweh. And so the exile would come. But it would be different for Judah. Look with me at verse 7. But I'll have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or horsemen. Now you'll find this, by the way, in 2 Kings chapter 19. The very same nation that takes the northern kingdom away into exile attempts to take the southern kingdom as well. That nation, the king of Assyria, God says to the people, to Hezekiah, and the reason is Hezekiah actually repents and turns to the Lord. And so God relents from the disaster. He says, He shall not come into this city, or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same way he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for the sake of my servant David. And that night, the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies." You see, God would deliver Judah, but He would not deliver the northern kingdom of Israel. No, the northern kingdom of Israel would go away into exile. And as you know, and as we talked about, and obviously some of you are visiting with us, and so if you don't know, the Northern Kingdom goes away into exile and they mingle with the Assyrians and they essentially become the Samaritans. And that's where we get the interaction between the Israelites, those from Judah, and the Samaritans in the New Testament. So that's the second child. The first child speaks of the sowing of the people. They're going away into exile. How are they going to go away into exile? Because God will not have mercy on them. But why won't he have mercy? The third child. When she had weaned, no mercy. Lo, Ruhamah! She conceived and bore a son. And the Lord said, Call his name not my people, or Lo, Ami! For you are not my people, and I am not your God. The Hebrew here at the end, that phrase, I am not your God, that's actually, your God is inserted by the translators there. It simply says, I am not I Am to you. Remember in Exodus chapter 3, when Moses meets there the Lord at the burning bush for the first time, he reveals himself, I Am. The self-existent God, the Eternal, the Almighty, He is I Am. And He would be I Am to Moses and the people of Israel. But now, He is not I am to them. You are not my people." This would be, again, a tremendous blow. If you're thinking about a timeline here, it's about three years roughly after No Mercy is born. It says that No Mercy has been weaned. So roughly three years later, not my people, Lo Ami is born. Jeremiah 15 and verse 1 says this, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go. The prophets had a terrible, difficult job of announcing these things to the people of God. Or in this case, those who were no longer God's people. It's a complete reversal. of the promise that God had made. Exodus chapter 6, I will take you to be My people and I will be your God. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. Hosea's children will be a reminder of the people's sin and of God's judgment and the severity of sin You see, beloved, sin is not just this light thing that we just entertain from time to time. It is that which brings a break between God and His people. What hope? What hope is left? For there is no one who does not sin. Our only hope is that the words of David in Psalm 103 are true. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. That brings us to our third point, God's promise. See, if we just simply ended with Hosea's marriage and the children that were born to him, we would simply leave in sorrow. But God still promises a future for his people. Yet, he says in verse 10, the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, you are not my people, it shall be said to them, children of the living God. In one word, there's a turn. Yet, the reality of sin cannot be turned away from. You see, those who simply want to say, sin isn't that big of a deal, it's okay, and overlook it, misunderstand God's Word, misunderstand the severity of it, because they don't understand the holiness of God. Were we to come into His presence in our sin, we would be struck down. We would not be His people. We would not be children of the Living God. Yet, It's almost like how Paul in Ephesians chapter 2 speaks about how we are by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. And then the very next verse says, but God, being rich in mercy, Because of the great love with which He loved us. You see, the salvation of God's people is not based upon their performance. It couldn't be. I mean, Hosea reveals, lays bare before us, what it is that we deserve. Because if we're not Gomer, then we're the children of Gomer. Because we're sinners. And yet, And what does God do? He reiterates the promise that He made to Abraham. He'll bless you. He'll multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. What it means is that what has happened under the Mosaic administration cannot cut the people off forever. Yes, they will be exiled from the land. Yes, they deserve nothing less than judgment like Adam before them. They deserve full and final judgment. And yet, God's promise will stand. As Paul says in Galatians 3, the law which came 430 years afterward does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. So the promise is that there will be this reversal of names, reversal even of the division. The children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together and they shall appoint for themselves one head. This is the universal promise of the prophets, that God is not done with the people, though they have turned away from Him, though they have spurned His covenant, though they have spit in the direction of His promises, whether it's by setting up false idols in the temple of the Lord, or worshiping Baal in their hearts, or visiting the temple prostitutes. God's promises would not be undone, though they have become faithless, and they must be exiled. He will not be faithless. He will be faithful. And the promise then looks forward. It looks forward to this time where North and South, that is Israel and Judah, come back together and they appoint for themselves one head. This again is the universal promise of the prophets. You can go to Ezekiel chapter 34 where it says that my servant David will be prince among the people. pointing of course to that promise that God made to David, that there would be descendants on His throne forever. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. How does that work? The day of Jezreel was the day of judgment. The day of Jezreel was this sowing, was this scattering of the people. Well, I think it's found in, the ESV brings it out, it says they shall go up from the land, but it actually is the word they shall spring up. It's almost as though it's envisioning spring. And there the people scattered like seeds all over the land, there they will spring up. For the Lord has sown them there and they will grow and they will bear fruit. This points forward to nothing less than that glorious harvest that Jesus himself speaks of in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And our text then ends with a reversal of the announcement. Say to your brothers, you are my people, and to your sisters, you have received mercy. Like Adam, the Old Testament people failed they forfeited their status as the people of God. And yet God would be faithful to them, even as Paul picks up in Romans chapter 9, as indeed he says in Hosea, those who are not my people, I will call my people. And her who was not beloved, I will call beloved. And in the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God. And Paul makes clear that this isn't just for Jew in the Old Testament, but for Jew and Gentile brought together in Jesus. God's love is clear in Hosea, for he will love his wife who is unfaithful to him. And if you don't see it yet, this unfaithful people isn't just Old Testament Israel, isn't just Adam in the garden, but all who are descended from Adam by ordinary generation. The church of Jesus Christ is a faithful bride, not because of our faithfulness, but because of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. It is He who has given Himself up for us, that He might sanctify us, that He might cleanse us by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Beloved, the story of Hosea is one that points us forward to the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. It is He who purchases His bride with His own blood, laying down His life upon the cross. Hosea calls us to two things then. Two things that I think are pretty self-evident, but I'll say them anyway. The first is a call to thankfulness. Again, think of who we are in the story. If we're not Gomer, or one of her children, that is in ourselves, apart from Christ, we need to be redeemed. We need to be purchased. Our sins must be paid for. And so we are called to be a thankful people. For we were once not a people, but now we are the children of the Living God. And secondly, it calls us to faithfulness. We're not there in the story yet, but Hosea is going to be called to go and buy his wife back. And she's going to be called to live with him faithfully. We've been saved to walk before God in a way that honors Him. We've been redeemed by our Savior to love Him all our days. We have been shown mercy and been made the children of the living God so that we would act, we would live accordingly. This is how God calls us to walk in redemptive gratitude for what he has done. God has great love for a faithless people and this beloved is our only hope. Let's pray. Gracious Father in