After our first lesson, I was talking to somebody, and I don't recall who it was, and they made the comment, when I said, Hosea, fear was their reaction. Where's that? I've got to find that. So I'll give you a minute. Now, if you're using an electronic device, it's no problem. It's click, click. It doesn't matter if it's Hosea or Genesis. But if you're using paper, as I am, it's more of a challenge. Now, I will say that we'll be back. So maybe your Bible will open there automatically after a period of time, and that will be easier. Hosea chapter 1 and verse 1. The word of the Lord which came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. So we spent a couple of sessions together talking about what is a prophet, and trying to set the field on that this morning. It's introductory matters with respect to Hosea, and here's what we want to cover. Hosea's name, Hosea's calling, Hosea's background, Hosea's peers, Hosea's times, that's a whole lot of stuff. It goes fairly rapidly. Hosea's name. Hosea means salvation. Was that significant? Everybody's name means something. I don't know what your name means. You may not know what your name means. Is that significant to you? Was Hosea's name significant that it meant salvation? Why do you name your kids what you do? Is it because how it sounds? Is it to memorialize a relative or a person that you love or respect? Is it for the meaning? Well, names in the Bible were often significant. Genesis chapter 30. Let me just walk through a couple of instances of this. Genesis 30. Leah and Rachel are having children. Verse 6, Rachel said after Bilhah, her handmaid, conceived and bore a son, she said, God has vindicated me and has indeed heard my voice and has given me a son. Therefore, so because of the event, And the significance of the event, she named him Dan, which means judged. God has judged me. God has vindicated me. So that name was all about significance. And Rachel's maid, next verse, Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. So Rachel said, with mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and I have indeed prevailed. And she named him Naphtali, which means wrestlings of God. over a couple chapters. Genesis 32 verses 27 and 28. This is Jacob at Peniel. Jacob wrestles with the angel. The angel speaks to him. Verse 27, So he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with me. and have prevailed. Israel means he who strives with God. So, name had meaning, not that names always do, but often in the Bible they do. And the most significant, of course, is Matthew 1.21, you shall call his name Jesus. for he shall save his people from their sins. Jesus means Jehovah saves. Call his name Jesus, because of who he is and what he'll do. The salvation of Jehovah. Jehovah saves. Interestingly, the Greek Jesus corresponds to the Hebrew Joshua, which is kind of a lengthened form of Hosea. Hosea, salvation. Joshua, the salvation of Jehovah, or Jehovah saves. Joshua was called Hosea. Seems like that didn't make it to my last draft, but in Numbers, Moses recounts how his name was Hosea, but he called him Joshua. Joshua was God's man to lead God's people to fight God's battle in order that they would end up in and with and possessing and resting in the promised land. He was the salvation of Jehovah for God's people then. However, Hosea was also the name of Israel's last king. We'll talk about this a little bit. 2 Kings 17.6 Hosea, and he was the evil king, and he was the last chapter in a sad story, and Israel ends up in exile. Names are not magical, are they? The salvation ends up in exile and loss. Still part of God's plan, but names are not magical incantations. The name Hosea was of significance, salvation. Now, did God tell Beery and his wife what to name Hosea? Did they name him salvation, hoping for him to play a role in bringing salvation to God's people? I have no idea. Hosea, whose name meant salvation, in the language that the people thought. And it's not like, you know, your name in Irish means something, and so in your head, you know. But in the language that people spoke, it's like instead of calling Henry, Henry, we called him a cup of cold water. And every time you talk to a cup of cold water, you'd think about a cup of cold water. Hosea meant salvation in the language the people spoke. It wasn't like this hidden-in-the-mystery-box meaning. Every time they said salvation, here comes salvation. What does salvation have to say to us today? And so when salvation prophesied, it reminded them. And salvation, I mean Hosea, talked a lot about coming judgment. And yet in the midst of these oracles of doom, salvation was speaking the Word of God. And Hosea talked a lot about God's faithfulness to his promises. And Hosea talked a lot about God's love for a sinful, wandering people. Salvation spoke a word from the Lord about God's love to a backsliding people. A prophet named Salvation brought messages of judgment, and in the midst evoked hope of mercy, because his name was Salvation. And he spoke about God's love, and even his name was a validation of the fact that God's love is real, present, and relevant. Well, Hosea's name. I don't want to spend too much time on that. Hosea's calling. We already spent two sessions. Hosea was a prophet. Now, he's not called a prophet in the book, but first words that we encounter as we begin reading this book, The Word of the Lord, which came to Hosea. Definition of a prophet. Chapter 1, verse 2, when the Lord first spoke through Hosea. Definition of a prophet. Hosea is a prophet, and so Hosea brings God's words to the people. He doesn't bring his own ideas. He doesn't bring his own words. He's speaking with his mouth. His own thoughts flow out. And yet these are God's thoughts and God's words. He speaks the word of the Lord. Hosea was a man speaking for God with God's words and God's, therefore, God's authority. So hear the word of the Lord and hear God speaking. This is God speaking to you. So, often people ignore and reject and despise God's prophets. There's a whole history of that. Certainly, Hosea encountered that. And they despised God's prophets, therefore they despised God's words. Now we're talking some significance here. And so, they reject God himself, because the prophet spoke for God. Last time we talked, we referred to a passage in Hebrews where it says that Moses was faithful in all his house. And Christ, as the final prophet, was faithful in his house. A prophet must be faithful. He must keep on speaking for God regardless of the reception that he receives. Because people ignore prophets. Prophets are sent because people need to hear something. There's a problem. Something's percolating. Something's dying. Something's smelling. So a prophet comes. People aren't like, oh boy, here comes a prophet. Can't wait to hear. But a prophet must be faithful. He must keep on speaking for God. A prophet is not market-driven. A prophet is not judged on the basis of consumer opinion polls. A prophet's rating is not established on the basis of audience acceptance. A prophet is not even based on the number of units sold, but on his faithfulness to God who sent him. Hosea's name, Hosea's calling, and now Hosea's background Chapter 1, verse 1, Hosea was the son of Beri. But he is the son of Beri. Hosea is not mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, so we know nothing else. Hosea's place of origin is not specified. Hosea appears to come from the northern kingdom. Look at chapter 7, verse 5. On the day of our king, the princess became sick with the heat of wine. Who is our king? 7 verse 1, when I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered in the evil deeds of Samaria. So it's about the Northern Kingdom. So those are synonymous terms, by the way. So Israel is the Northern Kingdom. Samaria is its capital. So when he talks about Samaria, it's emblematic of the Northern Kingdom. And Ephraim is by far the largest tribe in the Northern Kingdom. So often he'll speak of Ephraim, but he's really speaking about the people who live in the Northern Kingdom. So, the king is the king of Israel. He calls him our king. Seems to be that he's from the Northern Kingdom. If so, he was the only prophet in the Bible, except for Jonah, the only writing prophet, who comes from the Northern Kingdom. Jonah was not sent to Israel. He was the only prophet from the Northern Kingdom to the Northern Kingdom. We'll talk in a little bit more about the Northern Kingdom, but the Northern Kingdom departed from God and the very foundation was Jeroboam and the calf worship, and they didn't get as many prophets because they had departed. And yet they did have Hosea and there were others who didn't write, but God does speak even to this apostate. nation. Well, Hosea's peers, these were the other prophets that spoke in the 8th century, that is the 700s BC. And so we have Jonah, who was sent from Israel and sent to Nineveh, of all places. What a merciful God of all places. But we're here to talk about Hosea. Amos was probably earlier than Hosea, and he was sent from Judah, from the southern kingdom, where God's true religion is practiced. He was sent to the northern kingdom, Isaiah. from Judah sent to Judah, Micah from Judah sent to Judah. So these are the other prophets that are prophesying in this same century. So, Hosea's peers, let's come to talk about Hosea's times. Politically, first of all, Back to chapter 1 and verse 1, the word of the Lord, which came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, when? During the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. So, there we have them. These are the kings of Judah, the southern kingdom. and Jeroboam in Israel. Uzziah reigned from 792 to 740, Jotham until 731, Ahaz until 715. I'll explain some of these discrepancies as we go along. And then Hezekiah until 686, Jeroboam from 793 to 753. So these are the ones that are specifically referenced in Hosea 1. Now, there were two strong kings, and it's immediately apparent who they were, Uzziah and Jeroboam. Jeroboam II, and let's look at that passage there, 2 Kings 14. Jeroboam reigned for 41 years, and Uzziah reigned for 52 years, from 793 to 753. Jeroboam is called Jeroboam II because there was another Jeroboam, no relation, but just to keep them straight, we call Jeroboam II. This Jeroboam, Jeroboam II. Let's read 2 Kings 14, 23-29. In the fifteenth year of Amaziah, son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, became king in Samaria and reigned forty-one years. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, just like all the other northern kings. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the first Jeroboam, the first king of the divided kingdom, which he made Israel sin. So what did Jeroboam do? I mean, the most important thing is that he was evil. So that's what the scripture writer tells us first. But then it says, he restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke through his servant Jonah. That's our same Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet who was of Gath, Hefer. So he restored. Let's move ahead. There's another slide here. The first map. We'll come back. There we go. So. Oops. Second. There we go. So when Jeroboam was king, he extended. Israel's Israel's boundary was here, but he captured this area which was sometimes called Syria not a Syria Or sometimes called Aram captured all of this area and so the boundaries extended clear up here and similarly Uzziah captured other territory as well for the south, but he extended the territory and let's go back to our Yeah, I get confused. There we are. So Jeroboam reigned for a long time in the north, and then similarly Uzziah, which is chapter 15, verses 1 through 7. Uzziah, 15-2, he was 16, also known as Azariah, was 16 years old when he became king, and he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem. Verse 3, he did right in the sight of the Lord. So, we'll come back to that, some observations on that in a few minutes. So, where did Hosea fit in? When was his ministry? Well, we saw here, let's go back, there we go, we saw that Uzziah became king in 792, Jeroboam in 793, so it must have been sometime after that. So we're going to do a little digging in here, and we don't do this too often, but let's deal with some names and dates so we try to understand how this fits together. So Jeroboam began in 793, Uzziah in 792, Hezekiah ended in 686. According to Hosea 1.1, Hosea ministered during the times of these kings. Well, he didn't minister for a hundred years, or whatever that is. So it's sometime within that time. So when did Hosea minister? So we've got some clues. Chapter 1, verse 4. Hosea 1.4. I have to find Hosea again. The Lord said to him, name him Jezreel for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed of Jezreel, and I'll put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. So Hosea is prophesying the fall of Samaria. the fall of Israel. Does anybody know when Samaria fell? 722 B.C. Samaria fell and Assyria takes them into captivity. So, Hosea prophesies that this is going to happen. I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. And all the time you read Hosea, and we will, all the way to the end, it's still coming. It's never come. It doesn't happen. He prophesies and we never see the fulfillment in the book Hosea. So whenever Hosea lived, his prophecy must have ended sometime before 722. Alright, so that's part of it. Now we've got another clue. Hosea chapter 10 and verse 4. Obviously that's not Hosea 10 and verse 4. somewhere here it speaks of Shalman 1014 the old drop the one trick thank you therefore tumult will arise among your people all your fortresses will be destroyed as Shalman destroyed Beth Arbel on the day of battle so during his ministry Hosea knew of Shalman, who was a king of Assyria. This is probably Shalmaneser V, in 2 Kings 17, verses 3-6. Now time is getting away from us, so I won't be able to read all of this, but 2 Kings 17, verses 3-6, it says that Shalmaneser imprisons Hosea, the last king of Israel, and besieges Samaria for three years until Samaria falls in 722. So Shalmaneser started to rule Assyria in 727 BC. So Hosea needed to certainly minister beyond the time that Shalmaneser started because he speaks of him as if he was already present and active. So the end of Hosea's ministry was sometime between 722 and 727. We still have an issue here of Hezekiah, because we said Hezekiah's ministry ends in 686, but when does it begin? Look at 2 Kings 18 and verse 2. We have a discrepancy here, and I want to walk through the discrepancy with you, because maybe in your own reading, or if you read something by critical scholars, people who scoff at the Bible's accuracy, you come against these discrepancies. So, let's work our way through this a little bit. 2 Kings 18, verse 2. Hezekiah was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned how long in Jerusalem? 29 years. So Hezekiah reigned 29 years, according to 2 Kings 18. So the 686 number is a good number. He ended his reign in 686. If he reigned for 29 years, he began his reign in when? Okay, you got calculators? $7.15, you get the price. $7.15. Hezekiah began his reign on the basis of this evidence at $7.15. Anybody see a problem here? Yeah, that's a problem. Because Hosea says that Hosea was ministering during the reign of Hezekiah. Yet if Hezekiah began at $7.15, we've already established that Hezekiah's ministry ended before 722. Let's look at 2 Kings 18. It came about in the third year of Hosea, the son of Hezekiah, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, became king. In other words, the third year, so Hoshea became king. He was the last king. Alright, what was his years? 732 through 723. because he ends when that ends. So, year number three of Hosea is year number one of Hezekiah. Well, it doesn't stop there. The Bible continues to be specific. Verse 9 of 2 Kings 18. Now, it came about in the fourth year of Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hosea. Year number four of Hezekiah is year number seven of Hosea. Well, it doesn't stop there. Verse 10, it came about the end of three years. They captured it in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hosea. So this all corresponds, right? This is all in harmony with each other. Year 3 of Hosea was 729. And that doesn't correspond to 29 years which is beginning of the reign of 715. So is the Bible wrong? Well, the explanation that is commonly referred to here that we would give is that Hezekiah, like many kings in those days, was co-regent with his father, so daddy's king So before daddy leaves, he makes his son king and they reign together for a period of time. Not a bad idea to transfer authority. Let me show you how you react to this. Let me let the people get used to seeing you up here on TV with me. Let's review the decisions we have to make and work together through how we do this. So transfer the power and so on in an orderly fashion. Co-regency. And so the explanation would be his co-regency began in 728 with his father Ahas, and then his sole rule began in 715. So when they said Hezekiah ruled for 29 years, it means he ruled alone by himself for 29 years, and yet he was also king in conjunction, co-regent with his father Ahas, which began in 729. That all fits perfectly. Surprise. So the Bible's not wrong. But there are plenty of other things that people bring up. There are answers to every unbelieving question. We don't always know what they are. And God doesn't always tell us because he wants us to live by faith. But sometimes you got to dig a little because there's a whole lot of answers available to the believing, inquiring mind. So, God gives us answers, but God has us live by faith. Well, okay. So the beginning of his ministry, then, would have been sometime before... Well, sometime before 753, when Jeroboam ends his reign. So we don't know how long it was, but Jeroboam gets off the throne, I believe, in 753. Jeroboam ends. So he started before that, and he ended in there, people typically say about 40 years, we don't know. But notice that there is a gap. Let's go back to this previous slide here. One more. There we go. There's a gap here. So the kings that he mentions, he mentions Jeroboam 753, but there's this gap. Here's all of these things going on in Israel. How come he doesn't talk about these other kings? Anybody know? Second Kings chapter 15. Let's go to our next slide here. One more. Thank you. Second Kings 15 verses 8 and following. This next 30 years, who was king? There were six kings. Three of them reigned for two years or less. Four of them were assassinated. It was a time of political instability. I was going to read through this. I would recommend that you read 2 Kings 15. The summary is right up here for you. Zachariah is king. He's king for six months. He's killed by Shalom. Now, Zachariah is the last king He's the fourth king in the dynasty of Jehu. We'll come back to that. We'll talk about that as we get into Hosea. This ends the dynasty of Jehu and it fulfills prophecy. Shalom kills him. One month later, he's killed by this guy. Sounds like the judgment of God upon the one who was the tool for assassination, doesn't it? Menahem reigns for a long time. He dies a natural death. Pekahiah reigns. He's killed by Pekah, one of his officers. Pekah, there's this overlapping time, but it appears that part of the time he reigned on Gilead only. He ends up being killed by Hosea, and Hosea is the last king of Israel. It's a time of political instability. It's a time of disintegration. You have this strong king, and then things are just falling apart. Let's step back and look at Israel for a moment. 1 Kings 11, the time of the divided kingdom. So why was the kingdom divided? 1 Kings 11.1. Okay, so we're going to speed this up a little bit because we're going to finish this. Why was the kingdom divided? Now Solomon loved many foreign women. And God told him not to. And yet, in verse 2, Solomon held fast to these in love. Well, why was the kingdom divided? Why was the kingdom taken out of the hands of David, the heir of the covenant? Because it was a woman problem. It was a sexual purity problem. Look, Solomon did it legal. He married him. A thousand of them. Is he a problem? Solomon held fast to these in love, though God said no. because many of them were idolaters, but they were beautiful, and that's all that mattered. So, Solomon was called Jedidiah, the beloved of the Lord, 2 Samuel 12 25. If God judges the beloved of the Lord for sexual impurity, even though it's legal, How do you think God would hold us accountable? Because your name and mine is not Jedidiah. Does God care about sexual purity? Is this a big deal? He takes the kingdom away from David and his success and his sons. He leaves them with one tribe, I know. But he takes that kingdom away. Ten tribes is the majority of the deal. because of the issue of sexual sin. It takes away from Solomon. Let me ask the question a different way. If wise Solomon was stupid enough to be led astray by sexual sins, do you think you're vulnerable? This is the sin of the age. We cannot emphasize the our vulnerability enough, or God's requirements strongly enough. We cannot emphasize it strongly enough. This is the reason the kingdom was divided. Now, Solomon loved many foreign women. Verse 4, his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord as God because his heart was going other places, contrary to God's commands. Well, there are many things we could read about here. Verse 9, the Lord was angry with Solomon. And verse 11, the Lord said to Solomon, because you have done this, you've not kept my covenant. I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Very specific. So verse 26, then Jeroboam, the son of Nebat and Ephraimite, Solomon's servant, came on the picture. And the man Jeroboam was a valiant warrior, and he was industrious. And Solomon puts him in charge of a bunch of stuff because he's a wise leader. And wise leaders are always grooming other leaders. And they're always delegating. And the law is looking for men of potential. And they're not afraid to share the limelight. They're looking for men to promote, because they know this is the essence of leadership. Solomon does this. Jeroboam has great potential. The story goes on, but the part I want to mention is the prophet Ahijah, verses 29-33. The prophet Ahijah is sent by the Lord to Jeroboam, and he tells Jeroboam what's going to happen. God's going to take the kingdom away from Solomon, not while he's alive, out of due respect to David. He's going to take it away. He's going to leave Solomon's son with one tribe. He's going to take ten tribes. And he's going to give it to you, Jeroboam. Now look at verse 34. Sorry, verse 38. 37, 38. I will take you. You shall reign over whatever you desire. And you shall be king over Israel. Then it will be... This is so important. that if you will listen to all that I command you, Jeroboam, and walk in my ways, all you've got to do is obey me. And do it as right in my sight, by observing my statutes and my commandments, as my servant David did. David sinned, you know that. And God didn't forget that. But God in grace told David, and he said, just obey like David did. Not perfectly, but with a whole heart, committed to me. Then I will be with you, personally, and build you an enduring house, as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you. Do you understand what he just said? He just told Jeroboam that I am willing, if you'll obey me, to move David aside. I'm going to make a new David, called Jeroboam. All you've got to do is obey me, and I will be with you, and I will build you an enduring house. You will have a dynasty that lasts for generations. All you've got to do is obey me like David." Well, you know what happens. There's the confrontation with Rehoboam. Rehoboam is a fool. And Jeroboam and the Israelites say, we're out of here. So Jeroboam and the Israelites go back home. He builds a city. Jeroboam says in his heart, now listen to this, now the kingdom will return to the house of David. If his people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord, Then the heart of this people will return to their Lord, even to Rehoboam, king of Judah. And they will kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah. And so what does he do? He makes two golden calves. He puts one in Dan and one in Bethel, the northern and southern ends of his kingdom. And he says, it's too much for you, Jerusalem. Behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And then he puts houses on each of the high places and he gives a whole new line of priesthood, verse 31, an institute of feasts that's a counterfeit of God's feasts. So he sets up a whole new worship system. Why did he do that? This is a question. It's not a rhetorical device. Why did he do that? He didn't trust God. What do you mean he didn't trust God? God gave him promises. All you got to do is obey me and I'll be with you and I'll make your house an enduring house. Does that mean that they won't come and kill him? I think that's what it means. He didn't trust God. He didn't believe God. He couldn't live by God's words. God's promises were not enough. Lack of faith. He lived by fear. They will come and kill me. Fear ruled his decisions. Self-interest overrules God's interest. They will come and kill me. What about God? Like, God's central to our lives and He chose us as a nation. Like, that's what it's all about. We're God's people. Jeroboam, you're just a piece, a pawn in this game. You're not the king. But it's all about me, the pawn. They will come and kill me. Therefore, I'm going to institute this whole new system of religion. And we'll get God out of the picture because it's all about me. Dude, God gave you promises. And you're going to be just like David. All you've got to do is obey. And Jeroboam did not count the Word of God enough. The promises of God, real. The power of God, sufficient. He didn't believe God. He didn't live by faith. Now, I'm out of time. The very foundation of the Northern Kingdom was a rejection of God. And from then on, that was our legacy. There was not one king in the Northern Kingdom who was good. There were kings that were powerful. There were kings that were successful. There were kings that were prosperous, etc., etc., etc. But there was not one morally good. Because from the get-go, they rejected God. And they rejected God with the... Listen, go back home and read this promise to Jeroboam, from Ahijah, from God. Of course, we have a lot of promises, too. Bad Jeroboam. Bad, bad Jeroboam. Do we live by faith? Do we live by fear? Well. we'll finish what we almost finished this time next time we get together. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for Hosea and his message help us to learn from this prophet who is such a prophet of his times which are so similar to our times where there is political disintegration and instability where there is moral disorder Lord, we need your word. In Jesus' name, Amen.