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beginning of a sermon series
that had been prepared by Reverend Winston Bosch from the Jubilee
Canadian Reformed Church in Ottawa. A series on Hosea. So we'll be
looking at Hosea 1 to the first verse of chapter 2. But before
we get into the Bible itself, we're going to set a bit of the
historical stage. For Hosea was a prophet in the
Old Testament in the 700s, in the time of the split kingdom.
And Hosea is in the north, The people of God, especially in
the north, they are not following God. In fact, for generations,
they've been serving idols. But in Hosea's time, they are
feeling fine about this, because for them it's a period of wealth
and prosperity for the nation. The surrounding nations are rather
weak, and they've been safe, and they also had a strong king.
But the times are changing, for Assyria to the east is growing
in strength. and militancy. And we know from
history that in about a generation or so, the kingdom of Israel
would be extinct, destroyed and exiled by the Assyrians. So Hosea,
he's the last prophet, hammering the nails in the coffin of the
northern kingdom, telling them that soon they will be destroyed. But before we get into the first
chapter, Let's look at the last verse of the book of Hosea. For there it says, whoever is
wise, let him understand these things. Whoever is discerning,
let him know them. For the way of the Lord are right,
the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.
And this is added because it is a difficult book to understand.
And we need to be wise. We need to ponder it, to chew
on it, to use discernment in order to understand what this
book is about. So let's look at Hosea 1. The word of the Lord came to
Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz,
and Hezekiah, the 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
Hortum and have children of Hortum, for the land commits great Hortum
by forsaking the Lord. So he went and took Gomer, the
daughter of Diblam, 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 no mercy, 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. So when she'd
weaned, no mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the Lord
said, call his name, not my people, 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, have received mercy. Well, brothers and sisters in
the Lord Jesus Christ, that is a pretty strange piece of scripture,
isn't it? God tells Hosea, the prophet,
to go and marry a whore, a prostitute, to have children with her. And
then he's supposed to give these children some really strange
names. I'd like to imagine Hosea's face
when he gets the instructions from God. Say what? You want me to marry who? Well,
I was thinking about that nice girl at church, but you want
me to marry who? And then later on, when he has
kids and God picks the names, I could imagine Hosea sort of
stammering. What was that name? Could you spell it out for me?
I don't think they're going to accept that name at the registration
office. It's not easy being a prophet.
Now, people have written books and made movies based on the
story of Hosea's family life. And maybe you've read one or
watched one. But here's the thing, is that
we shouldn't get too caught up in the family details and what it must have
been like for Hosea and his wife and his kids. Don't make Hosea's
family your focus. For the whole point of this chapter
is that Hosea's family life, it's a living lesson. It's a
living parable about God's relationship to his people, Israel. Hosea's
strange family life is supposed to teach a lesson. And it is
this lesson that is important. And so we want to concentrate
on that. And so pay attention to what
God is saying in verse two. Go marry a prostitute who will
bear illegitimate children. Conceive through prostitution
because the nation continually commits spiritual prostitution
by turning away from the Lord. The fact that Gomer is a whore
or a prostitute, it is a living image. It's a parable, a real
life metaphor for the people of God. In Hosea 4, verse 12,
we read, my people inquire of a piece of wood, an idol. They
have left their God to play the whore. And in Exodus 34, the
people are warned not to whore after other gods. And so prostitution
is being used as an image for idol worship. So Hosea is told to take Gomer
the prostitute. the unfaithful. And this was designed to be a
living image of how the people of God have been unfaithful to
the Lord by serving other gods. You can imagine what would have
happened. Word gets around that Hosea has married a woman who
is obviously cheating on him. In fact, she's prostituting herself
for money. And what's more, Hosea knows
all about it. And whenever it comes up in conversation,
Hosea would say, yeah, that's right, she's a prostitute. But
you know what? So are all you who are worshiping
other gods. For generations, you've been
whoring after other gods. You're all spiritual prostitutes,
unfaithful to the Lord our God. And that is what's happening
in Hosea's life. And immediately, there's some application for
our own day. First of all, the image of idolatrous
prostitution gives us a way to think about our own sin. Oftentimes
we think of sin just in terms of doing bad things or breaking
a rule or a commandment. But the Bible teaches us that
sinning is much more than that. Sin is often idolatry, which
is when we trust in or put our faith in things instead of God,
or in addition to God. Idolatry is when we seek our
happiness and find our security in something other than God.
And that might be material possessions, in family, or in money, or sex,
or power, in our own abilities or in our own reputation. And
when we do that, when we trust and find our identity in something
other than God, it's not just that we're breaking a command
or disobeying a rule. We are being unfaithful to our
divine spouse. We are serving other gods. We
are prostituting ourselves, turning our back on God to sell ourselves
to someone else. Hosea is going to use this image
through this book, and it is a bit of a shocking image, but
it is also a very helpful way to think about our sin. For when
you put your trust, your hope, in something other than or in
addition to God, then you are prostituting yourself by running
after, whoring after other so-called gods, other people or things
or ideas. And then that also helps us to
see things from God's perspective, doesn't it? For God is saddened. He's offended. He's angry at
our sin, at our idolatry, like a husband who finds out that
his wife is cheating on him. I have a friend who told me that
early on in his first marriage, he suspected that his wife was
cheating on him. And one night after coming home
from a work trip, he could smell another man's cologne on his
pillow. He said it was just devastating. And I know someone else whose
wife cheated on him while on their honeymoon. And I sat and
listened to the sobs of someone who's just discovered their spouse
was a serial adulterer. Sadness and dread, the sick feeling
in the pit of the stomach, the offense, the anger, and the frustration
that life is just disintegrating. Now this isn't pleasant to think
about, But this does help us to begin to understand how God
feels when we sin. Scripture says that the Lord
our God is a jealous God. He is loving and therefore a
jealous husband. And he does not like rivals. Jesus does not want to share
us his bride, us the church, with other guys. And so the story
of Hosea and Gomer, it is meant to make us think and ponder these
things. This is a book that stretches
our neat and tidy theological ideas of who God is. God, the
jealous husband, Christ, the jealous bridegroom, and us, the
cheating wives, the prostituting brides. And so that's Hosea's wife. Should
we talk about their kids? First, their oldest. So we'll
look at verse four and five. 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 to
an end the kingdom of the house of Israel. And on that day, I
will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. So,
Jezreel was a name that everybody knew in Hosea's day. Jezreel
was the name of a city in northern Israel, and it was also the name
of a valley that that city was found in, the Valley of Jezreel. And both the city and the Valley
of Jezreel, they had a long history of bloody violence. Well, the
city of Jezreel was the scene of the phony trial of Naboth,
who owned a vineyard near Ahab's palace. And he was murdered by
Queen Jezebel for his refusal to give up his land. That's found
in 1 Kings 21. And following this horrible act,
a man named Jehu, that speedy charioteer, was chosen by God
to punish the wicked house of Ahab. Jehu does, as God commands,
but he goes way overboard and is filled with a lust for blood
and violence. And in 2 Kings 10, he orders
that the heads of Ahab's 70 sons be cut off and placed into two
huge piles at the gates of Jezreel so that everyone there could
see them. You can imagine that's not something that people would
forget. And the valley of Jezreel that surrounded the city was
also the scene of various important battles. The victory of Barak
over Sisera in Judges 4. The victory of Gideon over the
Midianites and the Amalekites and their allies in Judges 6-8. The victory of the Philistines
over Saul and his sons in 1 Samuel 31. And the Egyptians' victory
over King Josiah in 2 Kings 23. They all happened in this valley,
and so the city of Jezreel and the valley of Jezreel, they were
historically soaked in blood. And the name Jezreel was a well-known
name that was synonymous with violence, bloodshed, and war. And so you could imagine people
asking Hosea, Why did you call your kid Jezreel? That's kind
of a strange name for a child. And Hosea replying, well, I named
him Jezreel because God is going to bring bloodshed and violence
on you, the people of Israel. He is going to break your bows
and your arrows. He's going to defeat you in war
in the valley of Jezreel. And we do know from history that
only a generation later the armies of Assyria would march through
the Valley of Jezreel and that they would mercilessly destroy
the northern kingdom. It would all come true. But maybe
today it would be a little bit like calling your child Hiroshima
or Nagasaki, the two cities on which the Americans dropped the
atomic bombs in World War II. And then when people would ask
you, why'd you name your son Hiroshima or Nagasaki? You could
say, because God is going to drop a nuclear bomb on this church
for all your sin, that's why. Well, after Jezreel, Gomer gives
birth to a daughter. Now you can see in verse three,
it says she bore him, Hosea, a son. But in verse six, it just
says she conceived and bore a daughter. We don't know for sure, but many
Jewish and Christian scholars think that the wording here tells
us that this daughter is not Hosea's biological child, that
she is a child of Gomer's unfaithfulness. And so a daughter is born. And
the Lord tells Hosea, Call her name No Mercy, for I will no
more have mercy on the house of Israel to forgive them at
all. No Mercy, what a terrible name. It's one thing to have God to
bring the terror of war on the Valley of Jezreel and to send
his people to Assyria, but it is quite another thing for God
to say that his compassion has finally run dry, that he will
have no mercy, that he will not forgive. That's terrifying. Verse seven says that the situation
for Judah would be different, that mercy would be shown there
in miraculous ways. But with Israel in the north,
the time for mercy was finished. Think about that. What does it
take for God, the God of love and compassion, the God of mercy
who was slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, to finally
say, enough, no more mercy. In Israel's case, it took generations
of whoring after other gods, belligerent, deliberate, idolatry
without repentance. God is slow to anger. He is abounding
in steadfast love. But brothers and sisters, God
is not a fool. He knows when he is not wanted.
Jesus himself looked over Jerusalem in Matthew 23 with what must
have been tears in his eyes, saying, Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how
often have I longed to gather your children together as a hen
gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left desolate. there is a moment when mercy
runs out. Scripture says God is patient, and that is very
true. He gives time for the unbeliever
to repent. But that time, that patience,
that mercy, it does not last forever. It comes to an end for
sure when we die, and it will come to a final end once and
for all when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. That's true for you here this
afternoon, if you do not believe. For God is patient and he is
having mercy on you right now. But when you stand before him
on the day of judgment, that time of mercy will be over. And
that should make you think. But verse eight continues. When
Gomer had weaned no mercy, she conceived and bore a son. Again,
it does not say that this is Hosea's son, just a son. And the Lord said, call his name
not my people, for you are not my people and I am not your God. You can imagine, Hosea looks
at this boy that Gomer has given birth to, a boy that's probably
not his own biological son, and he calls him, not my people. By this time, you can imagine
maybe the neighbors are like, hey, Gomer's pregnant again.
I wonder what they're gonna call this next kid. They're all wondering,
and this last name, it is the worst of all. Jezreel meant the
people would be destroyed. No mercy meant that God would
not forgive. But not my people? This is the worst, and here's
why. When the Lord appeared to Moses
in Exodus 6, he promised the people that they would be his
people and that he would be their God. That phrase, you will be
my people and I will be your God, it's repeated in various
places in the Old Testament to describe that covenant relationship
between God and his people. And here the Lord is saying that
when it comes to the northern tribes, for all intent and purpose,
the covenant is over. The people have rejected it.
They have broken it. And so he, the Lord, will give
them what they seem to want. He will no longer be their God,
and they can't be considered his people. You don't get a free
entry ticket because you're born into the covenant. You need to
be born again by the renewing work of the Holy Spirit. You
must repent and believe. Israel did not do that. And so
God says, fine, for you the covenant is over, not my people. That's
horrifying. And so here we have a prophet
with a prostitute for a wife and three children, three kids
with three strange names, each building on each other in a crescendo
of holy judgment. Hosea's family was a living billboard,
a warning of imminent destruction for God's people. So imagine
that we get a new pastor here in Sardis, and his name is Pastor
Hosea, and you have a meet and greet coffee social for him and
his family. So there's Hosea and his wife,
Gomer, and their three kids. And you show up at the coffee
social to meet him. And you see the pastor's wife
hanging out in the corner, and she's obviously and very inappropriately
flirting with all the men in the room. And so with some embarrassment,
you mention this to Hosea, and he says, yeah, that's my wife. She's actually a prostitute.
Like, not was, but she actually is still a prostitute. Just like
you all are prostitutes, spiritually unfaithful to the Lord your God.
How's that for a conversation starter? Maybe more like a conversation
stopper. But Pastor Jose is not done yet.
Oh, he continues, here are my three kids. This is my oldest
son, Hiroshima. I named him that because God
is going to nuke you all for your sin. And here's my daughter,
No Mercy. When you hear her name, remember
that this church will receive no mercy from God. He will not
forgive you. And here's my second son. I called
him you are not my church because that is what God says about you.
You are not his covenant people anymore. It's done. It's over. You aren't his church, and he
isn't your God anymore. Imagine that. That was Hosea's
life, a living parable of judgment. Hosea's ministry was about sounding
the death knell and hammering the final nails in the coffin
of the northern tribes. So there's a few pregnant women
here in our church still. I hope that none of you will
name your children Jezreel, or no mercy, or not my people. Please don't do that. For the
judgments in the book of Hosea, they speak of ancient history.
The judgment of these verses came true in Hosea's ancient
historical context. The nation of Assyria came and
destroyed the ten tribes of the north. They're sometimes called
the lost tribes of Israel. because they do not come back
from exile. So these verses of judgment,
they do have an historical context. But at the same time, they also
remind us of the character of God, that we serve a holy God,
a jealous husband who will not tolerate any rivals. The Lord
our God is a loving God, but he is no fool. He is a patient
husband, a merciful husband, but his patience and mercy will
come to an end. Maybe you could say it like this.
God will not forever tolerate the smell of another man's cologne
on his pillow. Idolatrous prostitution by the
covenant people will not be tolerated. Jesus is the loving, forgiving
Christ. But every Sunday we also confess
him to be the Lord who comes to judge the living and the dead. Wide is the gate and broad is
the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. Those
are the words of Jesus in Matthew 7 verse 13. If anyone does not
remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers.
Such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned.
John 15, verse six. And whoever believes and is baptized
will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. Mark 16, 16. So this is really serious stuff.
But here's what you really need to remember. If you're going
to forget everything that you've heard this afternoon, please
try and remember this. Jose isn't just a prophet of
judgment. He's also a prophet of grace.
And that's because God is not a God just of judgment. Above
all, he is a God of grace. Now it's true, most of the book
of Hosea is about judgment. And he's really hammering away
at those nails of the coffin of Israel. However, interspersed
within this book are seven absolutely beautiful passages about God's
grace. Seven beautiful passages about
the covenant love and faithfulness of God. Here in Hosea are some
of the most beautiful passages about love in the scriptures.
And in the next sermons in this series, we will look at each
one of them. And right here in Hosea 1, we
have that first one. So have a look at Hosea 1 verse
10. Yet, in spite of everything we've
heard so far, yet the number of the children of Israel shall
be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered.
This verse, it's like. It's like a beautiful flower
pushing up through the charred and burnt soil after a forest
fire. In the middle of darkness and
judgment of God, we also hear him speak of grace. God remembers
his covenant with Abraham in Genesis, where he promised that
his descendants would be like the sand of the sea, like the
stars of the sky, which cannot be measured or numbered. This
verse is like a beautiful flower pushing up through the charred
and burnt soil after a fire. The sin of God's people cannot
and will not ever stop God's plan for his church and his world. The sin of the church will never
ever stop God's plan for his people and for the world. When
we are faithless, scripture says that he is faithful. His purposes
His covenant plans for his church, they will come to pass. In Hosea's
day, Assyria is about to wage war. Israel is about to be destroyed
and judgment is coming. But in the middle of all this,
Hosea proclaims that there still is a future, a future that sounds
like an impossible dream, but it is so very real. So let's
hear it again. 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. Yes, indeed, flowers sprouting
up after a forest fire. These verses burst on the scene
with amazing grace. Words of reversal, verses that
blossom with new names and changed hearts, of restoration, of family
reunion. Wonderful words of covenant faithfulness. It is a future. where a little
girl named No Mercy gets a new name, You Have Received Mercy. A future where the horrifying
name Not My People will become You Are My People, and banished
children become children of the living God. Sinners are saved
and prostitutes are presented as brides without spot or blemish. Hosea isn't just a prophet of
judgment, he is also a prophet of grace. Because our God is
not just a God of judgment, he is above all a God of grace. If you were to trace biblical
history, you would find that these words do find partial fulfillment
in the times of the Old Testament. Because after Israel in the north
is destroyed, and Judah in the south is exiled, they do return
to Judah in 1 Chronicles 9. And we also see that there are
a few members of the northern tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh
who also come to settle in Jerusalem. But that is just a foretaste
of things to come, because the majority of this prophecy is
speaking about something far ahead into the future for Hosea.
The New Testament authors tell us clearly that these beautiful
words at the end of Hosea 1 are fulfilled in the church of Jesus
Christ. We read it in 1 Peter 2, speaking
to the church Peter says, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may
proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but
now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy." You see what Peter's doing there?
He's quoting Hosea 1 to say that the Gentiles entering the church
of Christ is the fulfillment of this ancient prophecy of God's
grace, that the children of Israel and the children of Judah are
gathered together into one church. The Apostle Paul says the same
thing even more explicitly in Romans 9, for in there he talks
about how God shows mercy to those whom he chooses, and we
read the following. What if God, desiring to show
his wrath 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, but also from the Gentiles. As indeed the Lord
says in Hosea, those who are not my people will be called
my people. And her who was not beloved,
I will call beloved. And the very place where it was
said to them, you are not my people, there they will be called
sons of the living God. Hosea pronounces judgment and
grace, and it's here, right here in this Church of Christ, that
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ flows as the children of Israel
and Judah, the elect of God scattered across the earth are gathered
in, and as we are gathered and called the children of the living
God. This is indeed the good news. Hosea himself may have not understood
it clearly, but this prophecy has his eyes fixed on Jesus Christ. Jesus, the one head, the new
king, the appointed and anointed one. Hosea's sons and daughters
had names of judgment. But God's son had a different
name, a name of grace, Jesus, for his name means Savior, Jesus
who transforms the day of Jezreel from a day of bloody judgment
to a day of bloody redemption on the cross. John 11 and 52
says that the joy that drew Christ to the cross was to, through
his death, gather into one the children of God who were scattered
abroad. And so Jesus the Savior hangs,
cursed and forsaken, and he takes on himself the Jezreel judgment
of God so that he can show grace to the church of God. On the
cross, Jesus receives no mercy so that we can receive mercy. On the cross, Jesus is suspended
between heaven and earth, and he becomes not my people, so
that you and I could become children of the living God. So brothers and sisters, perhaps
you've been a spiritual prostitute in the past. Have you been unfaithful
to your God? Whoring after other gods in your
idolatry? Have you been putting your trust
into things, into stuff, in people, in yourself? Does your sin deserve
no mercy? Yes, it does. Does your idolatry
earn you the title, not my people? Yes, it does. But has Christ
taken on your Jezreel judgment on himself? Yes, he has. So believe and find comfort here. By grace, through faith, Christ
has changed your name. have received mercy. You are
his people. You are children of the living
God. You are the bride of Christ. You are his spotless people,
clothed in the righteousness of Christ by grace through faith. Our God, he is a God of judgment
but much more than that, he is a God of grace. Hallelujah and
amen.
God of Judgment, God of Grace
Series Hosea Series
God of Judment, God of Grace
The Sin
The Judgment
The Grace
| Sermon ID | 81521213583419 |
| Duration | 35:36 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Hosea 1:1 |
| Language | English |
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